introspectiveH

As Joel Spolsky explains in his post The Iceberg Secret, Revealed, the user interface usually represents less than 10% of the actual functionality of the entire application.

You know how an iceberg is 90% underwater? Well, most software is like that too — there's a pretty user interface that takes about 10% of the work, and then 90% of the programming work is under the covers. And if you take into account the fact that about half of your time is spent fixing bugs, the UI only takes 5% of the work. And if you limit yourself to the visual part of the UI, the pixels, what you would see in PowerPoint, now we're talking less than 1%.

As he reveals the different iceberg secrets, he touches on one that often affects many programmers. When you show something that looks too fancy, it sends a false message of how close the application is to being finished.  This is the illusion of completeness.

If you show a nonprogrammer a screen which has a user interface which is 100% beautiful, they will think the program is almost done. People who aren't programmers are just looking at the screen and seeing some pixels. And if the pixels look like they make up a program which does something, they think "oh, gosh, how much harder could it be to make it actually work?" The big risk here is that if you mock up the UI first, presumably so you can get some conversations going with the customer, then everybody's going to think you're almost done. And then when you spend the next year working "under the covers," so to speak, nobody will really see what you're doing and they'll think it's nothing.

Because of the rigidity that comes from this illusion, the application looks too complete to get useful feedback on the real functionality.  Instead, people will focus on superficial usability tweaks like screen layout, button placement, background colors, etc.  Kathy Sierra elaborates on this topic in her post Don't make the Demo look Done.

The more "done" something appears, the more narrow and incremental the feedback…Show them something polished and pretty, and you'll get feedback on font sizes. The reviewers make incremental tweaks, blinded by what's in front of them. But show a napkin sketch, and they don't just see what's there, they see what's possible.

Kathy is a master wordsmith and I heed to her expertise; I couldn't have summed it up any better.  We need to ditch the fancy mockups and powerpoint presentations and instead, be honest with our customers and embrace the sketchy prototype.

Bonus

Adobe Flex is a great framework for building quick prototypes; however, because it's so fast and easy to build nice looking applications, it's easy to fall into the completeness illusion.  It would take about 5 minutes to create an application like this one that I snagged from an On Reflexion post called Napkin skins in Flex.  Click the image below to run the application.

Flex makes it really easy to apply styles to your applications.  By simple applying a new style, eyes are opened, illusions removed, and truths revealed.  Again, click on the image below and run the same exact application, just with a different skin.

If you are a java person, you can use the open source Java Swing Look & Feel called Napkin Look & Feel

I found the napkin skin and other cool Flex skins at scalenine.  Check out these other "sketchy" skins.  Run the app by clicking on the images.

Edding (my favorite sketchy skin)

Flekscribble

Popularity: 16% [?]

Wow, this absolutely makes my day, month, and year.  Hugh MacLeod is a very popular technology artist/blogger that communicates with drawings and humor.  I am already a big fan of Hugh and his hugely popular blog gapingvoid.  Now my good friend, James Governor of Redmonk fame, talked to Hugh about majority desk, and this is the result.  Get your wii hands on, gapingvoid style!

My business cards from streetcards.com already sport the two gapingvoid designs below, and I just ordered more with the new wiihand design.  AWESOME!  If you order from streetcards, be sure to pay the extra for the matte finish; it's totally worth it.

Popularity: 16% [?]

So I'm at the gym tonight jogging on the treadmill.  I'm a big dude, so this is a miracle within itself.  At least I had my trusty Zune to get me through the workout, right?.  Well, not really.

For all you Apple fanboys, just chill out for a sec and listen; I bought the Zune at Christmas from Amazon for $90.  The first pain was that I couldn't listen to any of my previously purchased iTunes music on it unless I first burnt all the tracks to a CD then ripped it down and added it to the Zune library manually.  Why do I have to go through this laborious task for music I already purchased? 

Anyway, I opted to by the Zune Pass for $15/month which gives me unlimited listening to any song with any participating record company.  This has been a decent option for me because I have been able to sample a lot of different music that I wouldn't normally purchase.  Well, the catch is that all the music expires as soon as you cancel your monthly membership.  When your Zune is hooked up to the PC, it can connect online to renew your music licenses. 

Well, that brings me back to tonight.  As I'm jogging along with ease (yeah right), and I am about 5 minutes into my run, I get a message saying all my music was expired and I couldn't listen to any of it.  I have been traveling a lot in the last couple of weeks, so I haven't actually had it hooked up to my PC to allow it to renew the licenses.  Well, this sure is a rude way to interrupt my workout.  I was pissed and had to finish up with no music.

So, let me ask you.  Why in the heck do I have to go through all this DRM crap for music I have already purchased?  I can't listen to it except on the device that I purchased it on originally, and when I pay monthly, I have to worry about stupid expiring licenses. 

This is what brings me to this first chapter of Why I Love the Interwebs.  Today, Radiohead released their new album In Rainbows as a digital download from their site.  Freed from any record label contracts, they leave it up to you to put in a fair price. 

On October 8, Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails, made this announcement on his website.

Hello everyone. I've waited a LONG time to be able to make the
following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally
free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have
been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the
business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very
different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a
direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.
Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008.
Exciting times, indeed.

This is the power of the Internet.  Welcome to the cluetrain.  Without traditional barriers of connection and communication, the global conversation no longer needs a useless middle man.  Record labels and their desperate grasp of DRM is archaic and outdated.  Music companies are holding on to something that is destined to fail.  The Internet brings in a new world where there are direct conversations.  If you don't bring value, then get out of the game. 

To kickstart the revolution, it will take a few big names to stand up for what is right.  For this, I salute you Radiohead and NIN.  You are visionaries and you are my heroes.  Now excuse me, while I first go support these guys and then head over to lastfm and pandora. 

Popularity: 14% [?]