Dave Concannon

I spent about an hour  yesterday integrating OAuth into a learning project. From the time I decided to play with it (knowing the absolute bare minimum about OAuth), to the point at which it was successfully doing what I wanted it to took about 40 minutes. This was the development version of lego - plug in a bit of code, configure the specifics, hook it into the desired area you want, tweak a little bit... done.

Juxtapose: The time I've spent trying to work with code that has no discernible interfaces - A black box with no windows. Pages of instructions to achieve something trivial. Configuration in multiple places. Hours spent trying to guess the "magic" variable that you need to reference that's defined somewhere in the depths of code but never mentioned. Underlying it all - the assumption that I know how you think.

Other developers don't think like you. The simplest units of code should do one thing, have a clear way to make it happen and then verify that it happened. It should not affect other things that aren't related to what the code is designed to achieve. It should be efficient. It should be Orthogonal.

Your users do not think like you do. They do not understand the inner workings of your software.  The interface should require an absolute minimum of context to be useful. Even if they were dropped onto a random screen it should be clear to them what will happen when they perform an action, and it should be clear to them when the action has happened. They should never have to ask "What do I do now?".

They should not have to understand how your brain works.

"Shameless Plug" via modowd @ flickr

A modern primer in determining whether you're engaged in shameless self-promotion.

1) You post a link to a comment you've written on someone else's blog on your own blog, and then tweet about it.

It's certainly naive to expect that if you write interesting content people will suddenly flock to it, but it's nauseating to promote every single thing you write. Engage your readers with interesting content that's on topic, and don't expect that they're interested in you writing "OMG! ME TOO!" in response to someone else.

Shame rating: 9.5 flashing-your-unmentionables-to-the-paparazzi-as-you-get-out-of-a-limos out of 10.

2) The majority of your tweets are teasers.

"Just putting the finishing touches on something that's going to blow your mind - watch this space!". Unfortunately the predictions never seem to come true. Be careful of "The boy who cried wolf" syndrome; if your every tweet is a cliff hanger don't expect anyone will pay attention when you actually produce something amazing.

Shame rating: 7 attending-the-opening-of-an-envelopes out of 10.

3) Your blog posts have little or no original content.

If you're simply reposting the first 50 links from a google search for "Programming tips" then you're really not adding any value. The only people you're really going to impress are those who are too lazy to search for it themselves.

Shame rating: 8 'accidentally'-letting-your-sex-tape-get-into-the-public-domains out of 10

4) You mainly write "top ten/five" lists themed around whatever is currently topical.

It's nice to read opinions on things, get a personal perspective on current events, or hear an amusing rant. Posting keyword-stuffed top-ten lists about Michael Jackson is pushing it a little bit.

Shame rating: 5 selling-your-wedding-pictures-to-hello-magazines out of 10

5) You spend a lot of time plugging your mate's webcomic, then have the nerve to give out about people promoting themselves.

Seriously though, have you read spaceavalanche? It's really funny!

Shame rating: 10 getting-max-clifford-to-whore-the-pictures-of-you-dying-out-to-every-newspaper-in-the-lands out of 10

The weekly retweet

A recap on any interesting links I posted or retweeted this week

• http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/innovation/2009/0608/1224248139138.html (Via @frankhannigan)
• Measurement Camp Dublin attendees - please take our survey (and RT). Thanks! http://short.ie/zrhs79 (Via @mmcdublin)
• New Space Avalanche Comic - Spear - http://short.ie/spear (Via @spaceavalanche)
• Social media Venn diagram: http://site.despair.com/socialmediatee/

Image via mikejackson@flickr

Between 1845 and 1852, Ireland lost about twenty five percent of its population through starvation, disease, and mass emigration as the potato blight destroyed Ireland's staple food. While there were larger forces at play,  one contributing factor to the mass starvation of the population was the lack of diversity both in Ireland's potato crop, and the diet of the population in general.  Even if there were different types of potato in the diet of the average citizen, the effects of the famine could have been reduced as differing potato crops wouldn't have been as badly affected by one type of blight.

Property Boom and Bust

Can the lessons of the great famine be applied to our current economic situation? Most certainly. Ireland is in deep economic decline caused by singularly betting our fortunes on property.  As the property bubble inflated the government stoked the fire yet further by offering tax incentives to investors purchasing housing and commercial property, banks pushed large loans to people without the means to pay for them long-term, and home owners cashed in their equity in order to invest in second homes or to allow them to live far beyond their means. People on very average salaries released mortgage equity so that they could drive brand-new sports cars, take several expensive holidays a year, or buy apartments in Eastern Europe.

Laying the blame

While it's clear that the government was not only asleep at the wheel but actively unscrewing the lug nuts on the wheels to the economy, the blame also has to fall squarely in the lap of the populace.  Overwhelmingly, Irish people have a high external locus of control ("it's not my fault - it's fate / the government / they're all out to get me") which I've heard attributed to Catholicism in that it preaches that "the flock follows the Shepard". Many Irish people are happy to follow the flow without trying to determine whether they've just pushed themselves into the veritable creek without a paddle.

It's also a common phenomenon for Irish people to complain loudly from the safe confines of the pub long after it's too late to change anything, as is our penchant for begrudgery towards anyone who succeeds. I'm all for constructive criticism, but where other countries praise their success stories loudly the Irish belittle them, cast doubts on the origin of their good fortune, and sneer at their efforts.

Learning from the past

For Ireland to drag itself out of the current economic mire, we need to correct these attitudes. The economy can be stimulated by innovative businesses succeeding and creating jobs. Government can be changed by motivated people who aren't willing to accept the endemic cronyism, incompetence, and dynasty politics. Ideas to promote business like the Tuesday push, and incubator programs are essential. Ireland is a tiny country hiding at the edge of Europe, but by learning from the lessons of the past and embracing divergent thinking we can have a global presence. We need original businesses that fix a problem for paying customers not "me too" opportunism or "We'll figure out the revenue model later" delusion. Most of all we just need to support people getting started find their path to success.

Kevin Cannon is a talented Irish designer who's based in Dublin (though currently living the student life as he completes a Masters degree in Copenhagen).  He has a nice portfolio site located at www.kevin.ie, though perhaps it's a bit too nice? Kevin alleges that hat the owner of kevinnorton.info seemed to think it was so nice that it deserved to be ripped off almost identically - the only noticeable changes being that the contact information and name was removed, and the "author" meta tag removed from the HTML.

I'd be jumping the gun in claiming that Kevin Norton plagiarises content from others, but apparently the original owner sent him a cease and desist email back in February - which he complied with, before putting the content back up again recently.

This might be relatively annoying were it not for the fact that Kevin Norton has misrepresented Kevin Cannon's portfolio of work as his own. Let me repeat that - Allegedly Kevin Norton is claiming that the past work of another designer is his own on a portfolio site which he uses to apply for business. Someone that is happy to copy content to such a degree and then has the chutzpah to claim that he's a designer is offensive.  We need far less of this type of copy/paste "professionals" out there.

Click here for a side-by-side comparison of how Kevin Norton allegedly copies content and passes it off as his own.

** Update **

It seems Mr Norton has removed all the content from kevinnorton.info, and it's now just showing a 404.

    With even the most limited of budgets a company can get themselves a presence on the internet, allowing their message and brand to permeate into the eyeballs of potential customers globally.  This is a huge opportunity to reach out to the world and champion your products or services  to people who may otherwise never have heard of you.  Planting a solitary flag into the moist soil of an undiscovered country could have been a fitting analogy ten or twelve years ago, but today the internet is like taking a seat in a massive sports stadium and expecting your voice to be heard above the clamouring masses. 

    If I take this analogy to the next step, let's imagine that for a few minutes you are given the undivided attention of everyone else in the stadium - a sixty second chance to let everyone else know why what you do is better then anyone who does something similar.

    I can't (and won't) claim to be a copywriting expert, but I want to compare and contrast two websites. I've stumbled across these companies over the last week or so and there's a sharp difference in how they present themselves. While they may be in different markets or targetting different business segments, they were both given the sixty second chance to attract my attention. One succeeded nicely, and one failed so miserably that I felt compelled to write this article.  Without naming names, here is a snippet of text from the main page of both.  Compare the robotic drone of this buzzword spaghetti:

 We enable you to leverage your existing customer, content and service assets to massively increase online adoption and monetisation, by leveraging the widespread adoption of widgets and Web 2.0.

 

To this simple, friendly, understandable text that I have copied verbatim:

$COMPANYNAME gathers all your valuable digital stuff — photos, documents, email, music, videos — from all your PCs and laptops.  It backs up everything, securely stores it, and organises it all so you can find or share your files from anywhere.

   If I try to translate the first quote I'm perhaps going to conclude that the company has something to do with widgets and want to leverage...  something. Maybe they make levers?  There are some guidelines that suggest that for maximum effect you should aim your web copy at an audience of 12 year olds, but while I have no intention of conforming to this,  clarity is always important.

     Marketing buzzwords exclude your audience, add very little in the way of value, and impress nobody but yourself.  Clearly these two example companies compete in different markets  (Business-to-business vs business-to-consumer),  but the difference in both clarity and the general impression of basic competence from the front pages of their website is remarkable.

(The astute reader will note that company B is putplace.com. I'm not affiliated to them in any way. They seem to have a nice product.)

You have to skate a pretty thin line between security and usability some times. Internet users have literally hundreds of passwords to remember for the sites they use on a daily basis and while I might not mind so much if my youtube login was compromised, my bank account being hacked would be a serious hassle. So, how do we design a security system that protects the user's information while keeping it useful to use?   From a company perspective I see a few possible scenarios that might explain how some sites end up being released upon the public:

1. The IT department have their evil way - In this hyperbolic generalisation the likely result is that the user is subjected to a very plain looking site that's nigh impossible to use, but in the background there's all sorts of sophisticated technology churning away like some unholy robot. If you can find out how to log in to the site, it will probably never crash, but you'll never find what you want.
2. Let the marketing department have a shot -  The site will look beautiful; straight out of a powerpoint pitch. Curvy corners everywhere, Flash animation pumping out platitudes and the entire thing festooned with nebulous marketing jargon like a debutante streaked in fake tan and regret on the morning after her debs.  The site will do absolutely nothing of any value to the end user but it looks beautiful.

Neither of these solutions seems to deliver a fair and balanced representation of the company's efforts, so usually you end up with option three - The Committee. This is where you collect all of the people in a company who aren't important enough to have better things to do and subject them to a meeting. The demotivation poster site tags a meeting of this sort with the catchphrase "...because none of us is as dumb as all of us".  Somehow the design-by-committee process delivers the worst that the IT department and the Marketing department can come up with, all bundled up with the ribbon on top of the token executive who wants his stamp put on the design somewhere.

This is sometimes referred in software as "designing a garden shed".  The theory goes that if you present your well-researched and triple-checked plans for a nuclear power plant to a committee, the plans will be approved on the basis that it's a complicated business designing a nuclear power plant, and you must surely know what you're doing and look at his shiny suit... is it time for lunch? If you present a plan for a garden shed, your likely outcome is that you leave with a list of additions and suggestions that need to be implemented before it could possibly be signed off. The placation of ego dictates that a committee can't resist adding their own personal touches to your shed, and eventually you have a water-feature and solar powered bird-frightening device bolted on to the front door.

So, where am I going with all this? Earlier this week I tried to log into my Ulster bank business account. Admittedly part of the reason I've had trouble with it is that I rarely use it. Generally I'm going to take a peek when an invoice is due, or when I need to write a cheque to the taxman so they can give it back to the bank in the form of some sort of bailout.  Ulsterbank's online business bank account is the bastard offspring of The Committee.  The security for the login succeeds in making the site actually less secure while having the benefit of driving me insane. The process involves:

1. A customer number - Fair enough, a reasonable question.
2. A user ID - er... alright, I suppose this must be relevant if I had twenty people logging in.
3. A pin number. Random digits please - Eh.  Ok... Did I pick that, or did you give it to me?
4. A passphrase over ten characters, must include numbers - You what now? You want characters 11, 14, and 2? *ponders* Wasn't my password only *counts on fingers* 11 characters long?

Granted - If you're using this daily maybe you'll manage to memorise these four pieces of information, but me?  The last time I logged in (the third time I've ever logged in) I had to change the password.  And now I have absolutely no idea what it is. Eureka! With this new internet thing I can have the nice people reset my password, or maybe send me a link to reset my password, or just bloody well tell me my password?

Here's the "help" screen -

Wonderful! You have successfully informed me of how to enter numbers into a box on a website! My parents will find solace that my years of education were not wasted. I finally found a "contact us" page where I asked them (actually not so) nicely for a password. I've yet to hear a response. Also, this form required about 8 different forms of information, including my age. How is that relevant?

Is this login process less secure? If I'm a casual user of this site I'm left with four pieces of information which I have to remember. The chances of me remembering one of these pieces of information is pretty good, all four? Probably a longshot. The end result is that I'm going to write down my password, pin, customer number, and user Id on a post-it and put it onto my monitor. If I'm smart, I might put it into my wallet as security expert Bruce Schneier recommends.  I don't believe the average casual user will do that and I think the hassle of needing to remember four different bits of information is beyond necessary. It could be argued that security is adequate, but it's such a hurdle to usability that there has to be a better way.

The Alternatives?

I use two other bank accounts - AIB for my current account, and Rabodirect for savings. How do they differ?

AIB

1. Customer registration number provided by them. Reasonable, they need to know who I am.
2. A pin provided by them - I can handle that, username and password. I can dig it.
3. Random digits of a number I am very familiar with - Credit card, phone numbers. Easy peasy.

This essentially means I need to remember two pieces of information, as one is so familiar to me that it's unlikely I'll forget it unless I get hit on the head.

Rabodirect

1. Customer registration number provided by them.  Fine.
2. A number provided by my magic little decoder box  thingy, once I enter my password.

So with Rabo's handy-dandy little decoder box thingy, I enter my password and it gives me an authentication code to enter the site. Two pieces of information, easy to remember. I use Rabo's site about as often as I use Ulsterbank's site, and it's not confusing.

Applying these lessons to general design principles:

1. Avoid design-by-committe by any means necessary. Someone who represents the users of your site needs to have final approval of the design, and strong opinions.  Stop mediocrity before it happens.
2. Don't expect users to do things that you wouldn't do. Don't have sign-in forms that require twenty pieces of information. Don't have an online shop that doesn't display the price until you hit "checkout". Don't have a "help" popup which tells someone to put a number into a $%"£%ing box!
3. Less is more - Avoid the garden shed. Avoid marketing jargon. Avoid unnecessary flash intros. Avoid AJAX where it doesn't provide any benefit. Not everything needs to get into the design. Bruise a few egos if it makes your site better for your users. Cut it down to the minimum that works and then wait for feedback. If something is obviously missing you'll be told soon enough.

Update 5th May 2009 - Looks like I'm not the only frustrated customer.

• Caelan King has expressed similar displeasure  at Ulster Bank's Bankline System.
• Conor O'Neill also wants Bankline to use less security.
• I've still to receive a response to the email I sent UlsterBank.