OK…time to get a little philosophical.
So here is what we have: a whole bunch of personal homepages where people would put a bunch of info about themselves, their favorite music, movies they liked, and other bits of personal chit chat and then sprinkle it with some favorite photos and links to their friends.
Sound like MySpace or maybe your favorite blog? Sure does. But actually that isn’t what I’m describing! [Read more…] about MySpace and Blogs: The more things change…
No prizes for recognizing the reference in the title here – it’s much too obvious (please don’t tell me if it isn’t).
Here’s the current staff of Ilium Software (click for the big version):
Standing, left to right: Ken, Julie, Dan, Sheri, Matt, Ellen, Marc
Kneeling: Kevin, Lee
OK, we’ll have a prize (one of our programs, or, if you have all of them already, a handful of excellent stylus pens) for anyone who comes up with a good caption. Put any entries into the comments.
I’ve been running into more and more crazy corporate policies that might help the business in some fashion, but do nothing for the customer. In fact, a lot of these policies are downright bad for the customer and yet they still exist.
My personal theory is that if a policy is “Good for the Business” but “Bad for the Customer”, it isn’t actually good for the business at all! Read on!
*When I wrote this today I saw Kevin was getting ready to post and I was going to hold off until tomorrow. As it turns out we’re talking about the same basic topic (great minds think alike!) So I’m going to post it today anyhow as a complimentary piece!
[Read more…] about Good for the Customer vs Good for the Business
Ilium Software is really happy to have customers, but not so happy to have them that we would do anything to keep them. On the surface, doing anything seems like ‘bending over backwards’ to satisfy the customer. That’s not a horrible idea – we really try to make people happy within reasonable limits and company policy.
When I say ‘do anything’, I include threatening, badgering, obsfucating, hard-selling, and otherwise retaining. The first – and quasi-official – thing that I want to get across is that we don’t have a retention policy or a manual. Ilium Software does not have a document that says how to retain customers when they say, “I don’t like [product], I want a refund.”
For more examples and some ranting, keep reading.
How important is appearance? Is it a vital part of any application design? Or just a nice thing to add if you have time for it?
There have been a couple of great posts about this subject today. One of them is at Just Another Mobile Monday and another at Treonauts. Both of these address the subject from the point of view of a user. I thought I’d take a second to discuss it from the developer end.
[Read more…] about Form & Function: A Developer’s Perspective
