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

I love it; such a simple paradigm shift unleashes so many possibilities.  If you don't agree, then check out his next video where he uses this same concept to provide a cheap alternative to both expensive electronic whiteboards and the upcoming Microsoft Surface, which is supposed to be priced between $5k – $10K. 

Because of the high interest in the project, but lack of resources to pursue it full time, Lee released the Wiimote whiteboard project as open source…another brilliant move.

I'm swamped with requests for compatibility fixes, requests for Mac and Linux versions. … and as much as I would love to be able to get this working in the hands of as many people as possible, I don't have the skills or time to do all this alone. So, here is my call for help. I have created a SourceForge repository for all WiimoteWhiteboard development.

Over at Cynergy Labs, they have also picked up on the minority report/Wiimote concept and put together a really nice, polished application using a pair of real minority report type gloves.  Thanks to my friend Karl Johnson over at Cynergy, for sending this one along. 

Cynergy Labs: Project Maestro

I love the fact that these type of breakthroughs are being created with a $30 Wiimote and $20 worth of parts from Radio Shack.

Microsoft Surface: $10,000

Wiimote: $30

Making Microsoft's Surface an overpriced, big ass table: priceless

As a bonus, check out Johnny's latest project on head tracking with the Wiimote for desktop VR display.  This is just freaking amazing and opens up a whole new can of worms. 

Combine majority desk, maestro, and head tracking VR together and you could be fully immersed in a productive 3D environment using a minority report interface.  Thanks Johnny Lee; I salute you.

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.

Majority Desk is powered by Adobe AIR and takes major advantage of many available open source projects surrounding the Flex community.  We used Open Dynamics Engine wrapped with Python for the physics engine, Papervision3D for the 3D rendering, WiiFlash for the wiimote interaction, Tweener for the visual transitions, and Doug McCune as an Flex open source fountain of knowledge.  If you are interested, Dan is planning on writing a blog post with more of the technical details.  I will throw a link up once it is posted, or you could just just subscribe to his blog, which you should do anyway.  He is one brilliant dude, and working with him has been career changing. [UPDATE] Dan's post is up Majority Desk Architecture

So without further ado, check out the demo below.

Here is an exclusive interview that we gave to the Redmonk guys before our demo in Las Vegas.  They were the first to see it, because those guys rock!

Here are some photos of us on stage during the demo and the next day in the Community Clubhouse.  If you think majority desk looks cool on your monitor, picture it on a 30 foot screen in front of a thousand people.  Yep, that's me with my back to the audience "showing them my good side".  These photos come from Dan's Zooomr stream and Marilyn Pratt's Flickr stream.

This one comes from Nancy Margulies and her beautiful "Community Mindspace" mural

We had a blast and the crowd really enjoyed themselves.  We couldn't compete this year because we won last year with SAPlink, so we chose to break all the rules and just focus on blowing the crowd's socks off.  I think it worked.

Last, but not least, I want to give a couple shout outs to some of the people that gave us inspiration, support, and encouragement to work on this crazy thing.

• Denis Browne – SAP Imagineering
• Doug McCune – Independent Extraordinaire
• Ryan Stewart – Adobe RIA Evangelist of Awesomeness
• Matthias Zeller – Adobe go to man for all things SAP

Some other Adobe guys that make Flash/Flex/AIR exciting and fun to work with.

• Matt Chotin
• Kevin Hoyt
• Deepa Subramaniam

Some other SAP guys that helped with the videos and actually make SAP fun to work with, if you can believe it.

• Craig Cmehil
• Thomas Jung
• Mike Prosceno

And of course, my Redmonk peeps for doing the interview and always having other great blog content.

• James Governor
• Michael Cote

 Some initial reactions out in the blogosphere:

• Synthesizer Developer – Dan McWeeney's thoughts on the future of software development
• Demo Jam highlight video
• Majority…what? Majority Desk!
• Day One of SAP TechEd '07: Keynote, Community Clubhouse, Demo Jam
• My TechEd Day 1 Highlights
• Majority Desk – Wiimote 3D widget desktop – totally sick
• The coolest thing: get your Wii Hands on
• Outside in development, deli.cio.us, democracy and the colgate twins
• Minority Report? No, Majority Desk!
• Ed explaining to Marilyn how to operate Majority Desk
• A 3D Desktop Controlled with Wiimotes and Built in Flex
• If We Can't Compete We Won't Follow the Rules

While at the 360 Flex conference in Seattle, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to be on the Flex Show with Jeffry Houser and Adobe Flex evangelist Ryan Stewart.  I am already a regular listener, so it was really cool to get the chance to be live on AIR (bad pun intended).  I just finished listening to this and I was laughing out loud…good times!  Somehow we got off the Flex topic and covered many other things like Guitar Hero, tech evangelism, and even the Zune.  I ended up being on it for the last 20 minutes and I think I may have asked more questions than the hosts; oops, sorry guys.  It is pretty entertaining stuff, so go have a listen and let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: Even though I am doing a fellowship with the SAP Imagineering team, I really don't sound like Mickey Mouse in real life.  I'm not sure what was up with that microphone.  I guess it makes Ryan and Jeff sound more manly be making their guests sound like they just sucked down 10 pounds of helium.

To download, go visit the flex show site directly (and be sure to subscribe!)