Terry Blanchard

Alex Payne has written a wonderful article about why cross-platform development environments ultimately fail to deliver what customers really want; a great experience. Alex says:

This post is about platforms and doing the right thing by your customers. It’s about the one big thing that I think HipChat and some other great companies are doing wrong.

He nails the reason that cross-platform development tools and environments like Adobe’s Flash and AIR products are attractive from a business perspective but end up failing from the customers perspective. Ultimately, that circle of life will come back to haunt the business.

Many businesses are attracted to the idea of writing software once and deploying it across multiple platforms. From their perspective they have one development team, one code base, and one release cycle. What’s not to love?

That’s where most businesses stop their investigation. They fail to even think about what their customers want. They’ll quickly jump up and say, “What they want is our product on their platform. We’re giving them that!”

Yeah, but you’re giving them a turd and that’s insulting. I hear the next bit of verbal diarrhea spilling out of their mouth … and this part kills me.

“Well, at least they’ll have our product on their platform.”

Ouch. I think I just threw up a little while typing that.

What you’re communicating with a poorly-done AIR app is that your business priorities – namely, saving time and money – are more important than what your customers want.

Ironically paradoxical in nature because without customers there is no business.

Alex points out a few very well known products such as TweetDeck, Pandora, and Remember the Milk, where their users are begging for a native application. Sadly, the folks screaming for a native application for Remember The Milk have been flat out ignored by that company since 2007. Actually, that’s not ignoring them. That’s giving them the finger.

My team experienced a number of the usual problems one has with AIR applications: lousy performance, odd interface bugs, key combinations and UI elements that didn’t conform to our operating system. AIR apps exist in an uncanny valley between a web application and a desktop application, and the result is unsettling and annoying. Pretty soon, we were itching to go back to Campfire (via the native Mac client Propane), even though HipChat has better features and the promise of improved reliability.

Why are these cross-platform products so bad? Do users even know if a product is using a cross-platform development environment? Yup, they sure do. Users, even if they’re not geeks or developers like me, can smell a cross-development turd. I love how Alex wrote this:

Humans are gifted with extremely sensitive bullshit detectors. The average computer user may not internalize the difference between an AIR app and a native app, but he knows when something doesn’t feel right or work correctly. Your tech-stunted uncle may not ever request a native application with that terminology, but he’ll sure complain about his computer acting funny when he experiences the oddities of an AIR app.

Just read the comments at this site and you’ll quickly see the common threads:

• Slow
• Sucks up CPU cycles better than a Dyson
• Doesn’t conform/take advantage of native UI
• Lack of support for native OS features. Instead, uses the least common denominator solution that works across all-platforms
• Security issues

With comments like that, do you really think “investing” in that type of development environment is going to save you money/time in the long-run? Does this seem like the path to huge business profits and long-term customer loyalty?

Is it more expensive to create native applications across all of the different platforms? Yes and no. Yes, because it is an investment in the development of your product. No, because unless you’ve misjudged the market, this investment will more than pay for itself.

“We don’t have time” is the common excuse for delivering an AIR app instead of a good native app. Money, though, can buy someone else’s time. For a price, you can find a great contractor to build a native app for any platform under the sun. It’s an investment. Eventually, unless you’ve misjudged your market, the investment should pay off.

What should a company do when they don’t have the time, resources, or expertise to deliver a native application? You start by clicking on the link above.

Written by Terry Blanchard \\ tags: Adobe, AIR, Cross Platform, Development, Flash, Native

I’ve been seeing a lot of iPad usage around me. I know what you’re thinking, “Duhhh, Captain Obvious! You live in Silicon Valley and this is where Apple is headquartered. Yeah, I think you might see a few.”

Silicon Valley is loaded with top-tech talent. Devices and gadgets that only the top-talent stereotypes understand and thrive on is abundant around me. I don’t even blink an eye when I see Segway zooming by with a laptop strapped to the handle bars, touring it’s driver around the city while their Bluetooth stereo headset is connected to their smartphone, providing the audio portion of the tour, while also feeding directions to the Segway via it’s GPS.

Just another day in Silicon Valley.

There’s something different about these iPad sightings. One that pleasantly captivated my eye and brought a huge smile to my soul. These sightings didn’t involve your typical Silicon Valley geek. In fact, the stars of these sightings are usually the last people you would expect to see or ever associate with the word, “technology.”

And I love it.

I was having lunch with a colleague and noticed an elderly gentleman, well into his eighties, sitting at the bar with a Martini in one hand while streaming some NetFlix videos to his iPad laying down on the bar.

Is streaming new?
No.

How about the ability to watch videos on a computer, is that new?
No.

The type of person performing this task was.

Apple has done something magical here with the iPad. They bridged what many would say was an impossible chasm. All joking aside, we do everything we can to minimize the technology in the lives of the senior citizens closest to us. The remote control for the television can instill the fear of God into them when they’re looking for the volume or channel button amongst the 40 or 50 buttons on the remote control. DVR? Don’t waste your money, they’ll never use it because it’s a foreign and complicated mental model for them.

Another sighting. At my gym I saw an elderly lady on the treadmill reading a book. Not just any book. Her iPad was sitting in front of her with the Kindle application running and the font size was probably set at 96 points as I read along with her from the other side of the gym.

Watching these people use their iPad I didn’t see the awkwardness and hesitation you normally see from them when using a laptop or desktop computer. They were, dare I say it, “at ease” with it.

Why is that?

All of the typical items that frighten senior citizens who are new to using computers are not present with an iPad. Let’s start with the mouse. My mother won’t even try to use a computer because of the mouse. She couldn’t comprehend or understand what to do when the mouse reached the end of the mouse pad, but her cursor was only halfway across the screen to her destination. She didn’t make that mental connection between what was happening onscreen versus what the device she was directly manipulating had on one another. When I told her to pickup the mouse and move it back to the other side of the mousepad, she just stared at me blankly.

“Well, if I move the mouse it will move the doo-hickey thing on the television screen and I’ll be back in the same position.”

“No, Mom. That will only happen if the mouse is touching the mouse pad. You can pickup the mouse and if it’s not touching the mouse pad, the sensor on the bottom of the mouse won’t detect the movement and therefore won’t move the mouse on the screen so you can move the mouse without moving the cursor … never mind, just trust me.”

What we take for granted is pure magic to them. It’s a mouse for us, but it’s a 747 flight deck to them.

Removing that middle-man translation and adopting the touch screen is much easier for them to understand. Want to launch email, just tap on it with your finger. Done. They get that. That makes complete sense to them.

Another reason is software installation. The App Store on an iPad compared to shopping and installing software for a typical computer is night and day. Easy access to the App Store, seamless purchasing and installation without introducing more confusing questions and concepts such as, “Where on your hard drive do you want to install this new fancy software?” or “Make sure you have enough hard drive space on the destination drive before proceeding?” mean nothing to them.

App Store, tap to buy, screen automatically moves to the new application icon that is installing. Tap to open. They can do that. They get that. That makes sense to them.

And to get them started, you should pick up a copy of iPad For Seniors For Dummies for them.

Written by Terry Blanchard \\ tags: Apple, iPad, Senior

I was talking with a fellow UX professional and the conversation quickly turned into a discussion about design. It seems like every product or service has their, “don’t get me started” black-eye. No matter how elegant, wonderful, thoughtful, and well-orchestrated the product is, that bastard child always seems to be present.

Too often we measure the success of our designs by their best behaviors and ideal scenarios. Very rarely, if at all, do we use the worst case as a metric of success. It seems like we put the worst case into a dark corner of our minds and find comfort in the fact that it should be the exception, not the norm.

I’m sorry, but that’s just not good enough.

Acknowledging the flaws is the first step. The second step involves putting yourself in the persons shoes living through that experience. How do you make it right by them?

Garth Brooks figured this out. Before every concert he personally tours the venue where he is performing with a simple goal; Find the absolute worst seat in the house. Just like designs, every venue has one. Behind some structural pillar, or at the very top row furthest from the stage, etc. Once the concert begins he sends one of his crew members back to those seats with front-row tickets for those people. The people who paid with their hard-earned money to see him perform even if they were the crappiest seats in the house. The deserving fans.

Imagine their surprise when this happens. Their state of mind goes from, “Hey, the seats might suck but we’re seeing Garth Brooks perform live!” to “Holy shit! Garth Brooks just personally gave us front-freakin row tickets!” Garth doesn’t stop there. At some point during his performance he brings them up on stage and sings a song to them.

Best. Experience. Ever.

How does your design or experience work from the metaphorical back row?

Written by Terry Blanchard \\ tags: Design, Usability, Usage Scenarios

I love books, I love reading, and I love technology. Is the Amazon Kindle my new favorite gadget? You better believe it! While it’s not perfect, it is pretty darn close.

One of the things that really surprised me, and the Kindle delighted me in a quite a few ways, is that it is smaller than I thought it would be. Even looking at the picture I’ve included to the right, it looks larger for some reason. In reality it’s about the size and shape of a typical paperback, only lighter. I think the size of the device is perfect. The Kindle is very easy to carry and hold and Amazon includes a book-like cover that keeps the unit protected when it’s tucked away in your backpack or purse.

As much as I love to read, the Kindle has elevated that emotion to a new level. It’s convenience, utilitarian function, and no-hassle usage encourages me to think more about those moments I can get away someplace and disappear in a book. I find myself asking the question, “When can I sneak away for an hour or two to read?” a little more often than I usually do. I’m staying up later when everyone goes to bed just so I can curl up on the couch and read with my Kindle.

Amazon.com has always been my sugar daddy for books. Their site is simply the best and their customer service is beyond exceptional. I love the “Search Inside” feature that most of their books have. Being able to preview the Table of Contents, or the first chapter or two really helps solidify a decision to buy or pass without remorse. The Kindle takes this to a whole new level. You can download a sample of any book and it gives you the first 40 pages. When you reach the end of those 40 pages there’s a nice link to click on and purchase the book. It doesn’t get any easier than that. Well, actually it does. Here comes my first gripe.

Instead of the link disappearing and the remainder of the book just filling in from that last point I was reading at, it downloads another book as a separate entry in the Content Manager. Not only do I have two copies of the same book on my Kindle, but now I’ve got to go find where I left off in the new book, and delete the Sample book. Ick.

The screen is simply amazing. When I read about it online I couldn’t help but think that this was ancient technology. It reminded me of a calculator display, and I questioned what the quality of images would look like on a black-and-white display. It turns out that my fears were unfounded. In fact, it’s probably one of the most amazing features of the unit. It’s stunning, and it’s not an LCD calculator screen. It’s an e-ink screen and it doesn’t draw any battery power once the screen has been drawn which translates into an uncanny battery life between charges. Color photography books would look like crap on the Kindle, but most other photos and illustrations are very decent.

Getting content onto the Kindle is amazingly simple. No subscription plans are required, you don’t need to sync it with a computer after you’ve downloaded books. You also don’t need to find a WiFi hotspot. Amazon wisely created Whispernet which essentially piggybacks off of Sprint’s cellular data network. You don’t need to be a Sprint subscriber either. Every Kindle purchase, which is typically $9.99 for a book, includes the data charges and Amazon takes care of that so you don’t have to. Brilliant.

Amazon currently has about 190,000 titles available for the Kindle which is substantially short of the total number of paper books you can buy off the site. However, most of the books I’ve wanted have been available. Amazon has sensibly sprinkled Kindle links all throughout their site. If a book is available in Kindle format, it provides a one-click link that sends it to your Kindle. This is great feature since I still love visiting the site and can still shop for my Kindle content. If the book is not available for the Kindle the link becomes a “Tell this publisher you want to read this on your Kindle.”

Turning pages is super simple and it doesn’t matter if you are left or right handed. On both sides of the Kindle the unit has very large buttons that allow you to turn the page. Which leads into my next gripe, the position of these buttons. Unfortunately, you have to train yourself in how to hold and manipulate the device. Instinctively you want to pick the device up by the sides or hold it on the side, but you can’t. If you do, you’ll be turning pages. Admittedly, this only took a day or two for me to adjust to, but I still had to change what I naturally wanted to do.

My biggest gripe is with the aesthetics of the unit. It’s easily the ugliest piece of technology I’ve ever owned. I’m really quite baffled on how this product, that was so carefully engineered and thoughtfully designed from an experience perspective, could have so little care given to it’s aesthetics.

Written by Terry Blanchard \\ tags: Amazon.com, Kindle, Review

In my first article I described how a simple test drive led to the purchase my first Mini Cooper. I focused mostly on how much I enjoyed the actual driving experience of the car. While it certainly is a fun car to drive, there’s just so much more to the story of why I love my Mini Cooper.

Buying or leasing a car is one of those tasks in life that most people hate. Root canal is often more pleasant than a trip to the car dealership.

Buying a Mini Cooper is completely different animal. I really, really enjoyed the process.

I leased one in 2004 for three years, returned it at the end of the lease to get a new 2007 Mini Cooper S. Both buying experiences were awesome. Here’s a handful of reasons I attribute to this.

The Mini dealership I went to didn’t have any other cars on the lot, just three or four demos. Unless you are buying one of the demo cars, you will be creating and customizing your very own Mini Cooper. Therefore, I wasn’t about to be pushed into something immediately available on the lot that might not be the exact color I wanted or have some of the options I desired.

Configuring your own personalized Mini Cooper is hella-fun. Try it out. There are bazillions of different combinations that go well beyond the typical options most cars offer. If I wanted a Mini Cooper with a American or Canadian Flag on the roof, not a problem! Try finding that on your Toyota Camry.

So that’s fun. Now you have to wait a few months for your car. Normally, this really sucks. But there’s something really comforting in knowing that the exact car I specified will be built just for me. Exactly the way I want it.

Disclaimer: This next paragraph sounds really, ummm, odd, but it made a huge impact on me. I’m fully aware of how gimmicky it is, but it personalized my car in way that wasn’t so corporate, bullshitty, or salesperson induced and I certainly didn’t feel like I was being force-fed Marketing crap.

Here goes. I would get emails from my Mini. Yup, emails. Postcards too! Get out the straight-jacket, I’ve officially lost it!

I received a postcard with a picture of my car just after it had been painted that read, “Look at me! I look awesome in silver!” On another occasion I received an email letting me know, “I’m at the shipyard docks in England, they’ve just stamped my passport so I’m heading to the USA. You speak funny over there and drive on the wrong side of the road. That’ll take some getting use to. Can’t wait to meet to you!”

It was a fun way to send me notifications of where my car was that didn’t annoy me.

Written by Terry Blanchard \\ tags: Cars, Design, Mini Cooper