Doing The Work, or, Applying Leverage for Great Products

Doing the Work Or, Amy Pretends You Care About Interface Deisgn (But Not Really)

Amy Ruby & JavaScript Developer

Amy Teacher of Programming

Amy Crusader for Cheerful Software

Wait— "Cheerful Software?"

Wait— "Cheerful Software?" Are we hot-shot software developers or are we kindergarten teachers?

Software should be like a great concierge.

Software should be like a great concierge. Always there when you need it, doing things for you before you knew you needed them done, hovering in the background, ready to spring into action. Deferent, but not a brown- noser. And looking great in a 3-piece suit.

If software development was Magnum PI...

Magnum the car the smirk the chest hair the girls the TV show the goofy charm

Higgins the resources the control / power the connections the snarky jokes the (awesome) accent the style

If software development was Magnum PI...

End User

End User Developer

Magnum the car the smirk the chest hair the girls the TV show the goofy charm

knows kung-fu

knows kung-fu saves Magnum's ass

knows kung-fu saves Magnum's ass makes Magnum possible

If software development were a seesaw...

Developer End User

Seesaws have a fulcrum (point of leverage) go up go down require teamwork and equal effort fun?

Effort

Effort Effort

Weeee!

Weeee! Weeee!

And nothing says "good karma, happy users, and profit" like end users saying... Weeee! Weeee! Weeee! Weeee! Weeee!

Developer End User So, what's this here point of leverage?

Developer End User Code!

Developer End User Code! (Specifically: commitment & effort)

Code! Going the extra mile so the user doesn't have to...

Going the extra mile... accepting many types of input formatting data & error recovery pre-finding what's useful avoiding configuration integrating with other services syncing elimination of repetition

Going the extra mile... g ! in accepting many types of input y n o formatting data & error n a recovery nd A ! pre-finding what's useful selection workG I N R integration - O syncing B reduction of repetition

If software development were a mathematical problem...

1x Developer 16x End Users

1 hour - 15 minutes x 1 developer x 16 end users

1 hour in 4 hours out developer end users

Going the extra mile so the user doesn't have to...

Spotting potential points of powerful leverage

Spotting potential points of powerful leverage ... and pushing

Developer End User

Developer End User effort required

Developer End User effort required Balanced

Developer End User effort required High Effort Balanced High Effort for developer for end user

Developer End User

Developer End User lazy developers are lazy end users tear their hair out & die

Developer End User

Developer End User dedicated developers spend effort and their end users win big

"good karma, happy users, and profit" Weeee! Weeee! Weeee! Weeee! Weeee!

Interface != Graphical Developers are "end users" too

True greatness is measured by how much freedom you give to others, not by how much you can coerce others to do what you want. —Larry Wall (thanks Tim)

Where to push?

Going the extra mile... accepting many types of input formatting data & error recovery pre-finding what's useful avoiding configuration integrating with other services syncing elimination of repetition

Finding points of leverage accepting many types of input formatting data & error recovery pre-finding what's useful avoiding configuration integrating with other services syncing elimination of repetition

& anywhere there's repetition repetition repetition repetition repetition repetition

1 Open email client 2 Search for emails by "Bob" 3 Look for ones with paperclips 4 Open first email, look at filename Is it the one I want? No 5 Open next email, look at filename Is it the one I want? No 6 Open next email, look at filename

If people are doing things over and over again, the computer should be doing it. Machines are good at repetitive tasks. —Yehuda Katz, leader of Ruby on Rails

& anywhere there's repetition repetition repetition repetition repetition repetietion

Positive Examples

Scripting Languages Good Frameworks

banana:~ amy$ git statsu git: 'statsu' is not a git‐command. See 'git ‐‐help'. Did you mean this? status

1 Open the container. Does it have what I want? No 2 Open next next container. Does it have what I want? No 3 Open next container. Does it have what I want? No

1 Open the App. 2 Go to the File menu. 3 Go to Recent Files submenu. Does it have what I want? No Yes! 4a Go look for it 4b Open it 5 Open folders... 6 Open more folders... 7 Open more folders...

Recipe for Success 1 Find a point of leverage

Finding points of leverage accepting many types of input formatting data & error recovery pre-finding what's useful avoiding configuration integrating with other services syncing elimination of repetition

Recipe for Success 1 Find a point of leverage 2 Push hard on it

dUser En elo per Dev

Effort dUser En elo per Dev

Effort Weeee! dUser En elo per Dev

Recipe for Success 1 Find a point of leverage 2 Push hard on it 3 ... which bends time

1 hour in 4 hours out developer end users

Recipe for Success 1 Find a point of leverage 2 Push hard on it 3 ... which bends time 4 ... which helps everyone win

good karma, happy users, profit Weeee! Weeee! Weeee! Weeee! Weeee!

good karma, happy users, profit and a better world. Weeee! Weeee! Weeee! Weeee! Weeee!

Thanks. Now go out and leverage! http://slash7.com @amyhoy

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Doing The Work, or, Applying Leverage for Great Products

by Amy Hoy on Oct 23, 2009

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Doing The Work, or, Applying Leverage for Great Products — Presentation Transcript