Found it really helpful and that too when it was written over 3 years back.

These things I believe about software development and user-interface design.

1. Why write code?

Software is for humans, not for computers.

Software is only as good as the improvement it makes to a human being’s life.

Are we making someone’s job easier? Letting them have more fun? Helping them learn? Helping them keep in touch with friends and family?

Are we making the world a better place?

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2. What do people want?

Most people do not want a computer.

They don’t even want software.

For us software developers, this is a painful truth.

If people don’t want a computer, why do they use one?

• Email — for writing to other people.
• Instant messaging — for talking to other people.
• The web browser — for reading what other people have written.
• Word processing — for writing something you’re going to print out and show to other people.
• Graphics — for creating artwork. To show to other people.
• Presentation — for communicating your brilliant plan. To other people.
• Games — especially games that you can play online. With other people.
• Social networking websites — Enough said.

The computer is merely an intermediary. A poor and frustrating one. It is a necessary evil that people put up with in order to get what they want.

What they want is a better way to talk to each other.

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3. Why does software succeed or fail?

We software developers, being not exactly social creatures by nature, must work extra hard to understand the social impact our software will have. If the social effect is not what people want, the software goes unused.

We software developers, being not exactly average users, must work extra hard to understand how average users will relate to our software. We see the trees, they see the forest.

We software developers have often been confused and frustrated when a clearly superior technology fails, while a clearly inferior technology spreads like wildfire and takes over the world.

We were surprised because we want each technology to be judged only by its cleverness, its raw power, the cleanliness of its architecture, the purity of its ideas. We were blind to the user experience, to what each technology meant in the bigger picture of a person’s life.

To the people buying and using the “clearly inferior” technology, exactly the opposite was true.

To the user, the interface is the product.

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4. Why is there not more Linux on the desktop?

For open source software to take over the world, we’re going to have to do a lot better at user interfaces than we have been doing.

How do I know?

Open source has already taken over the invisible parts of the world: the servers, the infrastructure, the things users need not touch directly.

Mozilla, the most user-experience-focused of open-source companies, has the most adoption by end-users.

People say things to me like, “Linux is only free if the value of my time is zero.”

These are not coincidences.

At one time, the way of open-source software development was thought impossible. But the techniques were invented. The way became possible; then it became successful. Now the techniques are becoming widely known.

The way to make open-source UI design successful is still unclear. We must invent the techniques.

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5. Are users dumb?

User interface design is not about dumbing things down for the poor stupid user.

We software developers, understanding the software as we do, find it easy to look down upon those who lack our understanding.

This is wrong.

Users aren’t dumb. They just have better things to do with their lives than memorizing the internal data model of our screwy software.

When software is hard to use, don’t make excuses for it. Improve it.

When a user makes a mistake, don’t blame the user. Ask how the software misled them. Then fix it.

The user’s time is more valuable than ours. Respect it.

Good UI design is humble.

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6. Is UI design marketing?

User interface design is not marketing.

Software developers loathe marketing, so if they think that UI design is marketing, then they will loathe UI design.

The qualities of software that make for a good advertisement or computer-store demo are not the same qualities that make software usable and pleasant to work with long-term, day-in day-out. Often these qualities are opposites.

A shopper may choose the microwave with more buttons, because it seems “more powerful”. However, the shopper will soon find out that it does the same thing as any other microwave, you just have to spend longer figuring out which button to push.

It is easy to fool people into buying something that is against their own best interest.

Don’t do that.

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7. What is the task of the UI designer?

Let us talk about that microwave some more.

The microwave with the most buttons may be most popular, but it is not the best microwave.

The best microwave has no buttons at all.

It doesn’t need any buttons because it already knows how long you want your food cooked and how hot. You never need to set the clock, either: it’s just always right.

The no-button microwave may not be reachable, but like a guiding star it shows us the direction we should travel.

Users do not know what interface they want. Users do not know what features they want.

Users know the tasks they want to do, and the problems they have.

We learn more by watching the user work than by asking the user.

The job of the UI designer is to provide what the users need, not what the users say they need.

It is to make tasks easier, not to provide features.

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8. Where is the science?

User interface design can be approached scientifically. But usually isn’t.

Until we observe people using our software for real, our design is guesswork and superstition.

These things can be measured and given numbers:

• What program features are being used most frequently, and least.
• The number of mouse/keyboard interactions required to perform a task.
• The time it takes a user to figure out how to do a task.
• Rates of error.
• How quickly task-completion-time and error-frequency decrease as a user gains experience.

An interface’s efficiency and learnability are empirically determinable quantities.

They are not matters of opinion.

Every user is different, but that’s why we have statistical methods.

The science of design can tell us that interface foo is X% more efficient than interface bar, but bar is Y% more learnable than foo.

Choosing between foo and bar — that’s where the science ends and the art begins.

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9. Is change good or bad?

Change has a cost. Change disrupts the user’s habits. Change forces the user to learn something new.

Sometimes the new UI is so much better than the old one that the change is worth the cost.

Sometimes it isn’t.

The trick is knowing when change is worth it.

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10. What is the evil of the bad interface?

It is a sin to waste the user’s time, break the user’s train of thought, or lose the user’s work.

Bad user interfaces do all three. Frequently.

Most interfaces are bad.

I do not use the word “sin” lightly.

Because of bad user interfaces, an action taken based on a reasonable assumption or out of habit often results in broken trains of thought, wasted time, and lost work. This is called “user error”, but it isn’t. It is programmer or designer error.

When we blame the user, we teach them that technology is perfect and that the errors are their own. Because technology is hard to use, we are teaching a generation to be afraid of technology. We are teaching a generation to believe in their own stupidity. This is a sin, too.

It’s not the user’s fault.

 

 

Designing a product is keeping five thousand things in your brain and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. And every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently.

And it’s that process that is the magic.

- Steve Jobs

The warning signs of defending the status quo

When confronted with a new idea, do you:

• Consider the cost of switching before you consider the benefits?
• Highlight the pain to a few instead of the benefits for the many?
• Exaggerate how good things are now in order to reduce your fear of change?
• Undercut the credibility, authority or experience of people behind the change?
• Grab onto the rare thing that could go wrong instead of amplifying the likely thing that will go right?
• Focus on short-term costs instead of long-term benefits, because the short-term is more vivid for you?
• Fight to retain benefits and status earned only through tenure and longevity?
• Embrace an instinct to accept consistent ongoing costs instead of swallowing a one-time expense?
• Slow implementation and decision making down instead of speeding it up?
• Embrace sunk costs?
• Imagine that your competition is going to be as afraid of change as you are? Even the competition that hasn’t entered the market yet and has nothing to lose…
• Emphasize emergency preparation at the expense of a chronic and degenerative condition?
• Compare the best of what you have now with the possible worst of what a change might bring?

Calling it out when you see it might give your team the strength to make a leap.

Source – via Seth Godin’s Blog

Image Credits

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Steve Jobs 10 Commandements

Image Credit – Via DailyBeat

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” – Ira Glass

Here I try to look back at these 2 months and see what has been nice and what hasn’t been so nice.

So what’s nice about leaving FB?

1. I have had a lot of time for myself..reading, working out, learning new stuff.

2. I am actually keeping in touch with some of my friends through email/gtalk/phone [More personalized form of communication rather than a  common stream]

3. I would like to believe I have been much more productive at work as less distraction to work with.

So what sucks without FB?

1. I have possibly missed all the birthday’s in last 2 odd days.

2. I have no bloody clue(partly) which one of my friends is gong to be in town or whats up with their lives (These are guys who are not available on Twitter )

3. I am sure I have missed out on a lot of crazy and funny videos – which not a days only seem to be available on Facebook.

4. None of my friends is updating their photos on Picasa or Flickr anymore..

5. Its really tempting to share some interesting stuff I have come across to but unfortunately I can’t [I can still use Twitter but than twitter livestream just never lets anyone breath so I am sure lot of them miss out on the content]

6. I can’t brag now ..it was easier with Facebook

So yes, if you are thinking I will go back to FB – definitely yes! but I will be more productive this time  and moreover when you deactivate a FB account you can easily go back to it and restore it back the way it was –  as if you had never been gone.

Have any of you guys deactivated your FB account yet? If yes, how does it feel? and what awesome stuff have you been doing in the meanwhile.

P.S – I just activated my Facebook account because of work but let’s see how long will it last.

Its been some days since I have deactivated my facebook account. People say I have missed out a lot in terms of updates from friends & distant family but is it really true?..well, not really!! [Will discuss it in different blog post]

I have also had a lot of my peers, friends asking me what were the exact reasons for me to leave – I never got around to answering them one-by-one so here I am with the explanation.

1. SPAM – I was getting a huge number of event/group/fanpage  invitations. To say the least they were distracting and a big turn off.

2. Platform Longevity –  Facebook won’t last forever… at-least not in its original form! It will continue to evolve will the web or actually it might just become a wrapper around the WWW.

3. Identity Crisis - I just could not relate to 600 odd friends in my friends list..(means I made sure I knew everyone personally before I connected with them but I really don’t care about what random guy ‘A’(who I never really got along with) had for dinner.

4. People who really need a life! or wait…thats Facebook  - There are some people who will flood your life-stream with an update in every few seconds (others would just not show up) – dont forget the snake oil sellers [Become a fan of this page, join this community and blah group etc]

5. Productivity – I was wasting too much time on FB whereas I could have used the same time to surf the internet for more interesting content (learn something knew 0r break the myths). This one reminds me of a tweet by someone in my timeline

‘Facebook is like your refrigerator. You keep opening it up every few minutes when you get bored, hoping to find something new and exciting, but nothing’s ever different’

6. Narcissism – Facebook has made all of us a narcissist…Haven’t we all thought, “I’m going to post these awesome pics/posts/video and all my friends will comment on it or like it.” Its as good as saying , “Look at me! Look at me!”

7. Growth & Ownership – Final reason to ditch Facebook was in favour of my blog (Yup!! the one you are reading right now). Facebook owns your  profile/page/data not you..if you don’t comply with their terms and conditions your Facebook page can be terminated whereas If you have a blog on your own domain then you own it and have total control.

These were some of the reasons which sort of forced to deactivate my FB account. They were conclusive enough for me – what about you? Let me know through comments..

PS – I am only temporarily away from FB and would be back on it soon.

Royal Enfield

I have been a proud owner of a Royal Enfield Bullet for a little over 3 years now. I have thoroughly cherished my ‘in city’ riding experience as well as the occasional long tours.

Enfield’s have always been a topic for discussion and obviously I found myself discussing about my love for ‘The’ bike really often. Majority of the times I was distributing the ‘Gyan’ that how they (my friends) could do a lot better for themselves on tours and on city roads by choosing a Bullet – over other plastic spaceships available in the Indian market right now.

I basically use the following points to defend/recommend the bike to the fellow riders and friends :

Really Strong – Royal Enfield Bullet is a very powerful machine with one of the biggest “or perhaps the biggest” engine on any of the Indian bikes. One can easily cruise at 70 – 80 Kmph without even a slight glitch and without the feeling that underneath that moderate speed the bike’s engine is being pushed and may be suffering.

Try taking a test ride and you would figure what I am talking about.

Safest Bike on Indian Roads – By far Royal Enfield manufactures the safest bikes on Indian Roads. Why?? well..because of the following reasons

-  A well balanced bike. Its weight adds to its balance.

-  Wide Spanned and Strong Crash Bar (One can install the crash bar for the pillion rider as well)

-  Protruding Foot Rests safeguard the feet against the occasional case of an accident. Footrests add to the comfort level     by providing a good riding posture but they can cause a lot of trouble when you are trying to drag the bike to the      nearest puncture shop

-   Heavy and Safe : RE is the most stable bike at any of the speeds [Upto 110 Kms]. With the introduction of Disc Breaks        the safety standards have only increased

The Brotherhood – There is a special camaraderie between Royal Enfield owners – how often do you see Pulsar or for that matter Karizma owners coming together and riding out? And in fact have you actually ever noticed other bike owners come together and start riding in a formation, without actually sharing a common destination and without pre planning it.

It always seems that the new age bikes are always trying to edge each other out on city roads…be it the race to the next red light or just the sheer enthusiasm of overtaking another biker who doesn’t even realize that the race is on!.

Royal Enfield also has the maximum number of clubs dedicated towards touring in India.

Longevity – I have not seen any of the other bikes lasting through the decades. Whereas you can easily discover 1950’s – 1960’s Bullets still thumping strong.

Maneuvering – Maneuvering on the Delhi Roads has been a cake walk. I agree the bike is heavy and you need to have a slightly strong built just in case you get off balance but Bullet is still a dream to handle. The handle allows almost 70-80 degree rotation which makes it easier to cut through a heavily jammed road.

Comfortable Tourer : I must say I have been blown away with the posture a Royal Enfield provides the rider even with the company fitted seats. I hardly think that there is any other bike which comes close to the comfort levels offered by Royal Enfield.

To add to it there is always an option to explore other seating options like Spring Seats/Longer Back rest for the rider among other things.

Sound – Thump and the beat..Need I say more?

All said and done – there are still a few things, if improved, will the bike much more desirable and add to the experience and comfort like :

Better Customer Service : Customer service with the authorized service centers still remains questionable and I think a lot of owners have suffered a lot on their hands. Imagine on my last trip to the authorized dealer – the mechanics forgot to clean the carburetor, even after when the average servicing bill comes upto Rs 1500 per service (excluding the cost of the spare parts)

Bigger Petrol Tank : Smaller fuel capacity always hurts on the long rides specially when your other non RE biker friends don’t need to fill up.

Slightly Cheaper Spare Parts : I must say that RE spare parts are really expensive compared to the other bikes but once you are experienced a little you always know where to grab that extra crash and air filter from at a much cheaper cost.

Better Headlights : A good headlight goes a long way to help you on the lonely and long stretches and I so wish that RE provided us with good stock headlights. There is always the need to install that extra piece of lighting equipment on the bike but it also means that those extra resources will make sure the life out of the battery is snatched out.

Become a Grease Monkey – You will have to have some sort of mechanical competency to manage this bike on long tours. As small as ‘A fuse’ damage could leave you in a spot and without help for miles. Mind you, it’s not easy to drag this 180Kg bike.

Hence, its highly recommended that you figure out how those nuts and bolts have been put together.

Please do let me know what do you guys think and do add your experiences via comments – looking forward to them.

I love Twitter and I have been a regular user for almost 1 and a 1/2 years now.

Well yeah, I was a little late to the party and couldn’t get my first name as the ID. Hence, I chose a very safe and reliable option which was @aristobhupal [my first & last name]

Life was all smooth and I was having my share of fun by following some really awesome folks. Then suddenly earlier this year I came across a few articles ( this, this and this) that Twitter land rush could be on in sometime where Twitter will release the old twitter IDs which are inactive (major criteria being no activity since past 6 months).

So I waited – checking up twitter updates and other social media news sites that the day must be coming near when i would be able to claim my first name.

Nothing turned up so I decided to write to Twitter to get my own ID and these are the steps I followed  and they worked just fine for me.

Step 1 : Check twitter for its inactive user policy so that you can be sure you meet their criteria.

Step 2 : Once you are sure that the twitter ID you want is inactive. You can raise a ticket (Make sure you choose ‘inactive username’ in the dropdown column with the name ‘regarding’)

Step 3 : Twitter sends an automated response – (Please find below the response from twitter)
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Hello,

This is an automated confirmation that we’ve received your ticket. Twitter is only transferring usernames according to our trademark policies. If you are a trademark holder, please be sure to read this entire email; you will need to take further action in order to reopen your ticket.

Otherwise, we will not be able to transfer the username. In general, adding numbers, underscores, or abbreviations can help you claim a great username.

If you are a trademark holder requesting a trademarked name from a potentially inactive account, please reply to this email with the following information:

Username of the reported account (e.g. @safety or http://www.twitter.com/safety):
Your company name:
Your company Twitter account (if there is one):
Your company website:
Your trademarked word, symbol, etc. (e.g. Twitter):
Your trademark registration number:
Trademark registration office (e.g. USPTO):

Description of alleged violation (e.g., passing off as your company, including specific descriptions of content or behavior):

Your first and last name:
Title:
Address:
Phone:
Fax:
Email (must be from company domain):

Requested Action (for example, removal of infringing account, or transfer of trademarked username to an existing company account):

We are working to bulk release all inactive usernames, but we don’t have a set time frame for doing so. Currently, our system can check to see if an individual username can be returned to general circulation due to inactivity. Please note that you may not be able to tell whether an account is currently inactive, as not all signs of account activity are publicly visible.

If you’d like to trigger a review of the reported username, please reply with just the username. Please note that in this case, the reported username will not be directly transferred, but will instead be immediately made available for use by any Twitter user.

Thanks,
Twitter Trust & Safety

———-

Step 4 : Respond back to the automated email by sending the twitter ID you would want freed.

Step 5 : Once twitter establishes that the username you want is inactive and can be released – they send you back an email [Email attached below]
———-
Hello,

The reported account has been removed due to inactivity and the username is now available for use. If you have an existing account, you can select this username for your account from your Account Settings page. If you would like to select this username for a new account, you can sign up at https://twitter.com/signup. Please note that usernames are available on a first-come, first-served basis and this username is now available for use in general circulation and may be acquired by another user.

Here are a few additional things to keep in mind:

• If you register a username that uses another entity’s trademark, the trademark holder may be able to reclaim the username. Twitter’s Trademark Policy is available at http://help.twitter.com/entries/18367
• Our Inactive Accounts Policy is available at http://help.twitter.com/entries/15362

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Thank you,

Lukester

Step 6 : You can check your status of the ticket Twitter Ticket

Step 7 : As soon as you get the email from Twitter -> Login to your twitter account -> Go to Settings->Make changes to username & Save [This needs to be done as twitter does not allocate you the username but makes it available to anyone who would like to take it – so you need to hurry up!.

Do let me know if these steps work well for you too…