360|Flex San Jose

This post is waaay overdue, but I wanted to mention that I'll be speaking with the illustrious RJ Owen at the 360|Flex San Jose conference next week, August 18 - 20. If you're going to be there (it's sold out!), come check out our talk: "Diving Deep With the Flex Component Lifecycle", Wednesday at 2:30pm. Nothing like saving a talk until the end of a conference, 'eh?

Interview with DHH

Recently, I was extremely lucky get the chance to interview David Heinemeier Hansson for the UI Resource Center. David, of 37signals and Ruby on Rails fame, makes a compelling case for simple software, iterative development, and employee happiness. David's a friendly, eloquent guy, and was a lot of fun to talk with.

If you're working on any sort of software project, at any level, this is a thought-provoking read, and might challenge your pre-conceptions about how the project should be managed. I have to say, his ideas jive to a large degree with my experience, and are quite refreshing.

Thanks, David!

Customer Service: SmartyPig and Pragmatic Programmers

I've recently had a couple of great customer service experiences.

First, I had a problem with a transaction going through on the Pragmatic Programmers web site, so I E-mailed them and I quickly received a response from Dave Thomas, one of the owners of the company. He told me the whole thing was resolved and that it wouldn't be a problem, which it wasn't.

Second, I misunderstood the way SmartyPig works, and wanted to cancel my account right after I opened it. In my E-mail to their support address to cancel the account, I told them what my frustrations were. Within a few hours I'd received an E-mail response from one of the founders of that company, addressing my concerns.

In both cases, unfavorable things had happened to me - a payment resulting in an error mesage, a fundamental misunderstanding about the way a site works - but also in both cases, I'm more likely than ever to go back to those services, primarily because of the personal connection I made with the people running them. Personal connection engenders trust, whereas canned-response E-mails and phone trees do not.

Thanks, Pragmatic Programmers and SmartyPig. Nice work.

Come work for EffectiveUI!

I'm lucky to work for EffectiveUI, a really fantastic company. I honestly never thought I'd find a company filled with such smart, creative, and nice people, and get to work with interesting technologies and clients to boot. As sappy as it might sound, I've never been happier at work. So, guess what? We're hiring! Check out our jobs site, polish up your resume, and send it on over! http://jobs.effectiveui.com.

TypeRacer: Fun, fun, fun.

There's a lot of talk these days about "user experience" - how can we create great experiences that drive business results? How can we tie people emotionally to our software? What kinds of interfaces do people like to use? What's the common denominator for the best applications out there?

These questions have many answers, and the inquiry is certainly worthwhile. But sometimes, I think, we get too hung up on the details. We worry so much about technology choices and whether or not we can implement drag-and-drop/mashups/social networking/slick animations/3D that we forget about something pretty simple. That's right, kids: we forget about fun.

Not TypeRacer, though. They didn't forget an ounce of the fun (full disclosure: I'm a sucker for typing games. I remember my seventh grade typing class, and the inexplicable drive I felt to conquer the terrible IIgs typing game we played all class, every class. Years later, I became hopelessly addicted to PopCap's TyperShark). Not since iSketch have I been so hooked on an online game.

TypeRacer is dead simple: type in your name, wait for the green light, and type a pre-defined sentence as fast as you possibly can. The faster you type, the faster your little VW Bug moves across the screen -- hopefully fast enough to beat all of the other players competing against you in the same heat. I found myself playing over and over again -- "this is really my last game, for real this time" -- loving the feeling of waxing the chumps puttering across the screen at 25wpm (no offense, of course), and losing my cool when I get beat after mistyping strange words like "ultraviolence".

But here's the beauty of it: it's crazy fun. And there's hardly anything to it. The technology? HTML and Javascript. That animation of the VW Bug moving across the screen? Just an image getting moved about 50px at a time. The login process? Just type your name, no password required. The spoils of victory? An ever-shifting leader board (on which I was excited to find myself competing against the revered Mr. Jamis Buck). The sentences you type? Repetitive at best.

But I'll tell you what, I can't stay away: there's nothing like a little head-to-head competition, a simple interface, and an assault on my pride to keep me coming back for more. Yeah, I'd love to be able to play against my friends, and the leader board could use a better way of tracking scores (I'm not exactly sure when scores seem to randomly drop off). But these are small quibbles with a great app.

So here it is: you don't need the latest technology. You don't need whiz-bang effects. You don't need crazy, exciting, innovative new features. What you need is a good idea, boiled down to its core, and a great, accessible, fully-realized implementation of that idea with as much of the complexity removed as possible. It doesn't matter what technology you choose (remember how they shot The Blair Witch Project on tiny little camcorders?); let the zealots have the religious wars while you make a great piece of software. Use what you know. Make something people have a lot of fun using, and you'll certainly be a success.

360|Flex Atlanta: Super Fun

I'm terribly late in my recap of 360|Flex Atlanta, but dang, what a good time. I've only been to a couple of Flex-related conferences so far, but each one has demonstrated to me that I'm lucky to work with and among such talented, motivated, and smart people. My only regret is that I spent nearly the whole conference in my hotel room, prepping... but, hey, it was my first talk! I was nervous!

That said, I've been meaning to post my slides, so here you go... Sorry it took me so long. Thanks again to everyone who came to my talk, and to everyone who spoke at the conference. Can't wait for the next one.

Practical 3D: Immersive Interfaces for Regular People

(Two more things: First, the sweet template for my slides was designed by my friend Juan Sanchez over at scalenine. Second, I am not a fan of Mediafire, which is hosting the PDF. I clearly need to find a better way to share PDFs... if you download it, sorry for the ads...)

talking about discovery earth live at 360|flex

So, I couldn't say anything about it when I put up my last post, but my talk at 360|Flex is going to center around Discovery Earth Live. I was on the team of three developers who built the application (and that's not counting the multiple designers who contributed immensely), which was just announced by the Discovery Channel on Monday. I'll be giving an overview of the application, talking about how we solved particular development problems along the way, and attempting to abstract some general ideas about what makes Good 3D and what makes Bad 3D. So check it out: http://www.discovery.com/discoveryearthlive. Let me know what you think, and be honest... I'm eager to hear your thoughts!

While we're at it, here's the sweet "Earth Lights" collection from Discovery Earth Live in widgetized form!

speaking at 360|flex atlanta

So, guess what? I'm lucky enough to be speaking at 360|Flex Atlanta this year. I'm going to be giving a high-level introduction to creating 3D components in Flex with Away3D. But more than that, I'll be discussing when I think it makes sense to use 3D in the first place, showing some good and not-so-good examples of what 3D can accomplish, talking about what 3D frameworks like Away3D and Papervision3D do for you, and demonstrating an application I've been working on for the past few months. Come and check it out; it should be a good time! See you there, kids.