Image by OceanCreep via Flickr
Where software is concerned, I have long entertained the notion that those who write the stuff need an incentive to do better. The over-arching problem is that the programmers don’t use the programs they write, so that they are rather like house-builders who haven’t yet even gravitated to caves. They eat their pizzas in the rain.
Decimation, the quaint Roman habit of killing every tenth man to encourage the others, is the kind of incentive that comes to mind, and it should be carried out on an annual basis. Those who don’t write code that translates into a totally transparent user experience should die first. I don’t think programmers respond to subtlety. They are fixated on the large sums of money they get paid, and they absolutely do not understand what the users of the software they write have to go through. Meanwhile, we – poor users – blame ourselves for our lack of skill, and grovel over the phone to Indians with false names located in Bangalore in the hope of being dragged out of the mire. If we are lucky.
Where Windows Live Writer is concerned, I have now been using it for a week and certainly find it vastly better than Blogger (faint praise). On the other hand, it lacks a HELP MENU, and is positively permeated with eccentricities. Fundamentally, it’s a Darwinian creative environment.
Software companies do have people who are qualified in UX (the ‘user experience’) but I have long been of the view that they might be better off listening to real live users. Simply put, the corporate culture of all too many software houses overwhelms the non-programmer.
Spleen having been vented, I shall persevere.
Victor.
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