Isn't it funny that Canadians can tend to measure distance in the amount of time it takes to travel there. But it's an interesting way to measure.
I think we've been coming to understand wage disparity, but the size of companies is bigger today than it has ever been.
This is possible because of things like the Internet, where communicating and moving data over great distances is now possible with tremendous efficiency.
From my house, it's <40 milliseconds to Tokyo.
@svetzal We're equating distance with the experience of its crossing. It's more socially accessible I find vs. a number like Km, including people too young to drive. It might come from not having a car identity, having less access to car ownership, and valuing our time better?
Like who cares if something is 350 or 600km. I want to know if I'll lose half a day or a whole day to it.
Or maybe it's because we're used to slow speed limits, so again time is more important.
@svetzal I've always judged software by its experience, or even abstracted as its character. What does it feel like to use, how upset or excited does it make you, does it seem to have a sense of itself where there's a predictable back and forth between inputs and responses.
The other night I was swearing up and down at the Microsoft O365 web app for the People section of Outlook lol. It's such hot trash (of an experience).
@ellabellafull you'd think, over the decades of Outlook's existence, you'd find the courage to evolve the experience to something better.
@svetzal Haha that assumes anyone remembers what worked vs not in the past. Instead it changes continuously with different teams of people who are always starting over.
It's like humanity has no memory of itself nor its past great tools. It keeps burning the house down to make a new one and calls it "progress".
The longer I live through the iteration of software the more I'm amazed at how much islanded improvisation there is.
@svetzal I'd say the same about hardware. Like this new keyboard I got by Microsoft. They put the Lock and Settings keys right above the backspace so that any passionate typing (including upset about MS web apps) that sends the pinky too high to correct a mistake, locks the damn login session.
@ellabellafull Unfortunate Design 101
@svetzal On the flip side of too close: The space between keys below the number row feel too great for touch typing. They seem spaced for two finger hunt and peck typists. Lol
@svetzal My favourite curses these days are:
-Does nobody test anymore?
-Was there even a Product Owner, or just a feature checklist to complete?
@ellabellafull I use Cutler's mandate levels a lot when I'm framing things like this - if the people that "built it" were just programming by remote control, following someone else's instructions, it's gonna be soulless.
Is destroying the soul of an interaction really the best that we feel we can muster "at scale" ?
As long as IT organizations remain a cost to produce a feature, reduction of that cost is direct action against the soul of the experience that might have been.
@svetzal Quote of the decade:
"As long as IT organizations remain a cost to produce a feature, reduction of that cost is direct action against the soul of the experience that might have been."
Chef's kiss! ❤️
@ellabellafull such a powerful thought - interpreting and measuring something by its experience.
Like, who cares if 97% of our lines of code are executed during our automated testing, unless our users' experience with the system is pleasant.
Folks talk about the map vs the terrain, but what about the map vs the experience?