The Software Alchemist

These are some slightly stream-of-conciousness type notes from the Warmgun conference.

Unusable < Not sucky < Delightful

As engineers, we’re used to optimising to not suck. Removing bugs, making things fast, removing anything the user finds confusing. We’re used to saying things like “Engineering is finished when there is nothing left to take away”. This is good, but we can do better. We can add “delight”, which, as far as I can tell, refers to the little extras, the nice touches that make a user feel like we give a crap about making them smile, not just making their job easier. (Which, to be clear, is still number one).

We destinguish between application / database / help wiki / purchase process. Users don’t. This can lead to a disjointed experience (eg. search functionality siloed for each part of the process).

UE and design should be directly informed by our business model, and how we as a business want to interact with our customers.

Build reward cycles.

Caveat: Don’t go over the top with novelty trying to “delight” our users. Ultimately, the UI should provide a frictionless conduit through which customers can get work done.