I am a busy individual. I have a really good job. If you want to have any hope of luring me away from that really good job, you have to be (or offer) better. And I’m not talking about money here. I’m talking about better understanding, better service, and better opportunity. You have to understand that in our industry (software) there are more positions out there than there is talent; you have to understand that I have no interest in talking to you about the same boring job every other recruiter is pitching; you have to understand that YOU are trying to use me to make money and therefore have to provide ACTUAL VALUE to me.

Let’s take a recent example… I got an email from a recruiter telling me that his company had available positions in Infrastructure, Software Development, Integration, Engineering, and Information Assurance, and if I would like I could call him for the details… DELETED. That’s right, straight to the trash can with that email. Why? Because everyone has positions in Infrastructure, Software Development, Integration, Engineering, and Information Assurance available. Oh, and also because I’m not going to waste time talking to you about a generic job posting.

So how about a better example… Well, one recruiter piqued my interest with the generic sounding descriptions, so I emailed back and I share with you what I wrote:

Dear XYZ, I am very intrigued by the positions you listed.  I would love to hear more about the specific position you have in mind for me.  Could you email me some details and I will let you know if I am interested?  I’m very busy right now, so email is the best way for us to communicate, if you don’t mind.

The answer I got back was:

Dear Glenn, you can reach me at xxx-xxx-xxxx.  I’d really like to talk to you about this opportunity.

Okay, for starters, spell my friggin name correctly.  You misspell my name, automatic trash bin for you. Secondly, I’m not going to call you until I am convinced you can provide me value.  You’ve already failed to understand that people are busy and it doesn’t look good for our relationship. Finally, actually take the time to READ the email I sent you.  The fact that I sent you one at all, considering how many recruiter emails I see during the course of the day is amazing.  You should hang on my every word.  Seriously.  I would estimate that I pretty much delete outright 95% of the emails I get from recruiters, and the other 5% gets deleted after one email exchange.  That’s pretty sad.  You can do better.

So how, as a recruiter, does one actually do better?  I’ve wrote you a list.  (Now consider this… I am willing to spend 30 minutes more writing a list about how to do better than I am willing to spend responding to your lame emails.)

1). Actually read my resume and have the technical ability to understand it.

Yes, I list Java on my resume just like everyone else. But, if you actually took the time to read my resume you would see that I don’t actually list java in a job for the last 5 years, but rather there’s a lot of talk about JavaScript.  Now, which type of technology job do you think I am looking for? The one from five years ago which is slowly dying or the one that i have been working in for the last five years that’s hot as shit right now?

2). Stop trying to appeal to the morons.

A lot of recruiters just go by keywords and the mass mailing approach to getting clients.  Maybe this works for some, but it will never work with me nor anyone whom considers themselves my peers.  Believe me,  I can find a crappy, middle of the road job by myself, I don’t need you.  What I need you for is to find me that one job that is way over and above what I can find myself. All your offering me is, to quote Hamlet, “Words, words, words.” I want the dream job, not the boring average job. Which leads me to my next point…

3). A job that is described in keywords is not a job in which I am interested.

Jobs descriptions are marketing tools.  If you want to sound like Budweiser and says “We taste just like everyone else!” then bully for you, but I am still not drinking it.  Why would I when I can consume an experience like Heavy Seas Loose Cannon or Boulder Vanilla Porter.  Spice it up and really try to sell it… without using the same damn terms everyone else is using. Be creative… I know, TV has killed all creative instinct in you, but surely you must remember something from being a child.  Try it out.

4). Take the time to be right.

Grammar and spelling mistake = Deleted.  No exceptions.  If you cannot be bothered to wordsmith simple emails, I cannot be bothered to read them, and I’m certainly not going to trust you to be accurate when representing me to a customer.

5). Listen.

If I tell you in an email that I am really busy, try listening to me and working with me through email.  Stop trying to get me on the phone.  And worse yet, do not send me your form to fill out.  I’m not applying to a job at Burger King.

6). DO NOT copy and paste a job description.

Google may be the best thing you ever found for finding leads, but it’s also your enemy when it comes to job descriptions.  I am willing to bet that I can find the company hiring directly and circumvent you (not that I ever had) just by using Google and the cut and paste you just did of the job description.  Yes, it might take a little longer to recreate the job description and worse yet you might have to actually understand technology to do this, but it shows me that you are actually trying.

Now, I know many of you recruiters have reasons why you do what you do and I really want to believe it’s not just because you are lazy.  So let me try and answer some of your concerns.  (I’ll add to this if you email me some constructive feedback.)

I need to reach as many people as I can  – Go watch the first 10 minutes of Jerry McGuire.  Now, watch it again and this time try listening.

The only way I have to understand you is your keywords – That’s great.  Use keywords to find me, by all means, but then take the ten extra minute to actually read what you found.  Bonus points if you actually look at any other part of my blog while you are there.  Actually take the time to try to UNDERSTAND me.

I don’t have time to read through all the resumes I see – Make the time.  Quality not quantity, if you think different than I salute your mediocrity.

Staying on top of Technology is hard – Yes, yes it is.  Yet, some of us manage to do it just fine.  Twitter can be your best friend here.

Company X wants its job listed as Y – So what?  Eventually sure, share that with me… but for initial contact, sell it.

I can’t afford to spend all my time on you – Then I cannot afford to spend time on you.  Remember, you only make money by me changing jobs, which is a ridiculously hard thing to get people to do.

Quality is nice, but Quantity pays the bills – But quality builds reputations.  Take for example where I live… there is nothing but chain restaurants here with a few notable exceptions and I have never been known to espouse the amazing food I just had at a chain restaurant.  With a few notable exceptions. Even then, it’s the quality I’m espousing… not the quantity. If you want to be the kind of recruiter that people tell their friends to go to, then quality is a must.

When it gets right down to it, I just want a recruiter whom I not only trust, but that I know I can return to if I need to.  Someone who understands my SPECIFIC needs and desires int he workplace and doesn’t just want to represent me because of the money, but because he or she is actually helping me succeed.  In twenty plus years I have only met two recruiters who meet those goals.  And I keep in touch with both of them.

A friend of mine recently asked the Twitterverse the following question: “Can anyone recommend a good book on designing a good software UI? What works, what doesn’t, and in which situations.”

The Simple (but ultimately unhelpful) Answer

• About Face 3.0 by Alan Cooper – Especially Part 2 (Chapters 8 to 14).
• Designing the User Interface (5th Edition) by Ben Shneiderman – The whole thing.

Keep reading for the real answer.

The Difficult Answer

I love it when people ask me this question, because it means that they are actively thinking about the Interface and they want to improve. I applaud their willingness to change. Unfortunately, wanting to change and reading a book (or two) will not get them the results they desire.

User Interface Design is a huge field of study, a speciality of decades (even centuries if you talk about Information Design) of research and learning.  There are undergraduate and graduate programs around the world that teach only this subject.  Succeeding in one of these programs is only the beginning.  Experience is what really counts in this field. A person, my friend or any person, is not going to learn this subject by reading one book.

It’s akin to me going to the bookstore and buying “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting Your Own Business”.  Sure, this book will tell you the basics and give you some insights, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg.  Starting and running a business is an extremely complicated process and to think one book is going to get you there is woefully short sighted.

My problem with the original question is that it is naive.   It is naive to think that simply having the rules will allow you to effectively apply those rules.  It is naive to under-value practical experience in this field.  It is naive to treat an entire field of study as an after-thought.

The Real Question

The real question being asked is “Are there a couple of things that I can do to make my interfaces better?”

The answer to that is No … and Yes.

No, because as I’ve just said, there is no way to summarize quickly an entire field of study or years of experience.  Do not under-estimate just how valuable these things are to someone practicing in the field.

Yes, because I believe there are a number of tips that everyone can use to make their interfaces better from day one.  I’ll go into these really briefly, but I want to be very clear there’s a whole lot more to it, a whole lifetime of learning if you are willing to do it.  It’s an amazing, wonderful field and I thoroughly encourage everyone to study it.  Just be warned that it’s big, complex, and sometimes very unrewarding.

Remember: Interfaces are Everywhere

Anything people interact with is an interface: A Dictionary (the physical book kind) is an interface, a web site is an interface, a form you fill out for your employer is an interface, and a software API is an interface.  Each interface needs to be designed for the user.  So the next time you design something that someone else is going to use, or even for your own use, consider: how the interface works, how easy it is to use, and whether or not it meets your needs.

The Real Answer

While I encourage you to go and read the above books, if you do nothing else, keep the following rules in mind when you are designing any sort of user interface.

Consistency

The number one thing any software engineer can do to make interfaces better is to make things consistent.  I cannot begin to tell you how many interfaces I see that are inconsistent. (I’ve even made this mistake myself a number of times.)  If you do something one way in one part of your interface, always do it that way throughout the entire interface.  For example, if the Okay button is on the left and the Cancel button is on the right, do not change the order of these things somewhere else in your interface.

This also means adhering to the consistency norms defined by your Operating System or Operating Environment (a Web Browser is an Operating Environment).  Yes, you might not like it and you might think you can do it better, but the interface is NEVER (underlined and bolded) about you.  NEVER.

Details, Details, Details!

Anyone who does Interface Design should be horribly detailed oriented, almost compulsively so. Every aspect of your interface needs to be examined to ensure that the details are, going back to my previous point, consistent.  Form fields should be the same size, buttons the same size, everything aligned correctly, everything positioned perfectly, etc.  The details of the User Interface are the critical difference between good work and sloppy work.  And sloppy interfaces are bad interfaces.

Nothing annoys me more than going to another company and filling out their poorly designed forms.  (My current company is especially bad at this.)  These, as I mentioned before, are interfaces and spending a little time to make them more clean and more clear is worth its weight in gold.  I have, in the past, walked out of companies that were interviewing me merely because their HR forms sucked.

Know your Users

When beginning your design the first thing you should be asking yourself is what do you know about your users.  Shniederman and Cooper (the books above) can tell you a lot more about Actors and User Stories and all that, but it really just comes down to understanding how your users like to work, and how your interface is going to make some aspect of that easier.  So, get to know your users.  Are your users computer illiterate? If so, it’s not likely that they will understand something like Drag and Drop right away. Once you understand your users motivations and needs, then you can begin to design a system that best reflects them.

This is often very tricky because none of us have millions of dollars to do user studies, and shadowing, and user testing.  A lot of times our customers are abstract visions of customers.  That’s okay.  Just take some time to try and imagine (acting or role-playing training can be really helpful here) what those customers motivations and needs would be.  It’s not perfect, but it will do in a pinch.

Ease of Use

So it goes without saying that the easier to use an interface is, the more people will like it.  Of course, this must be tempered against the motivation and goals of the actual users.  So the real goal is that it must be easier for the users to do what their motivation and needs require.  I once read that Ease of Use can be defined as the number of mouse click or keyboard interactions required to perform some task.  It’s not a perfect measurement but keep it solidly in mind when designing.  And this segues into my next point…

People are Lazy

Assume that people are lazy and you will never be disappointed.  They want to do the least amount of effort for the greatest amount of payoff.    I call this the commitment factor: how much of my effort do I have to commit to receive the greatest payoff.  This is why the Lottery is so effective.  It does not seem to matter that statistics are stacked against the players, they still play because it’s easy to play and the potential reward is huge.

In interface design this is equally true.  The users will like any interface that makes things the easiest.  The converse of this, however, plays a valuable role as well… the users will like any interface that makes things easier, so long as they can control the results.  This means that lottery users like playing the lottery, so long as they can pick the numbers.  The more complicated the system to automatically pick the numbers, the less the users will like the results.

Ideally, the best systems are predictive systems that let the users control just the right amount of variables.  What is the right amount, well, that where iteration comes into play.  Try a low amount, try a high amount, calculate the best amount, and then keep refining.

Understand Flow

Cooper defines Flow as “When people are able to concentrate wholeheartedly on an activity, they lose awareness of peripheral problems and distractions.” (Cooper, 4th Edition, p119). We’ve all had these Flow moments: where what we are doing is so focused, so in-depth that we don’t notice external things such as what time it is, coworkers leaving for the day, or even phone calls from our significant others wondering why we are not home yet.  This is Flow, and it’s a very, very good thing.  Flow allows users to work on their specific need at an optimum level.  It is the goal of every good interface.

Poor interfaces interrupt flow with things like unnecessary dialogs, errors, hard to use process, etc.  The interface that interrupts less and is easier to use helps to encourage Flow.

As part of Flow I generally include visual flow in the discussion.  Visual flow is the ability of the human eye to find what it needs.  To this end, interfaces that focus or showcase what is most important to the user are better.  In the western world we read top to bottom, left to right, so items on the top left receive more attention than what is in the bottom right.  Keep this in mind as you build your interface.

Also, be aware that animated things attempting to engage or grab the users focus on your interface ALWAYS disrupt flow.  Use animation to enhance, never to engage.  Assume users have become oblivious to animated, blinking things and largely screen them out these days.

Design for Accessibility

One of the big failings of modern day design is that they fail to account for differences in human beings.  Some human beings cannot see, some cannot manipulate a mouse, some cannot determine the difference between red and blue.  Build for accessibility.  Be aware that some people view your site in really low resolution and that some view it in really high resolution.  Account for the differences in your fundamental design and from the beginning.  Going back and having to engineer your sight to meet section 508 standards can be extremely painful.  Do it right from the start.

One of the big things here is when sites use color to indicate differences.  Estimates seem to place color blindness in the US as 10 to 20% of the population.  Therefore using a color to indicate that some change has happened is not an acceptable solution.  When in doubt use a color change AND some other indicator (selection count, underlining, etc) to indicate response.

Feedback

Feedback is the process of responding to user behavior.  The more feedback, the more the user knows that they are doing things.  A common flaw is to do something without providing feedback to the user that something is occurring.  We see this in lots of User Interfaces because almost all User Interfaces rely on a single thread model wherein the interface rendering and response happen on the same thread as most processing.  The developer who pushes processing off into other threads (or into WebWorkers in the Web space) can respond with appropriate feedback to the user without waiting for the process to resolve.

Feedback is a key factor in responsiveness of a site and responsiveness is a key factor in a sites usability.  The more response a site appear, the more users feel like they are in control of how the system is behaving.

You Cannot Please Anyone

Just assume that no matter how great your user interface, not everyone is going to like it.  Instead, your goal should be to hit the 80% of user whom will like it.  There will always be edge users whom have different motivations and needs.  So upfront, identify all the users and determine what the 80% is that you can achieve.

Sure, it is possible to build an interface that scales to every type of user.  However, you will spend a disproportionate amount of time on the last 20% than on the middle 80%.  Think of a bell curve,and try to get the middle of that curve.

I know two sections back I just said to design for differences, but there is a separation between accessibility difference and designing for the edge users.

Learn from your Mistakes

Finally, learn from your mistakes.  I always believe that next version of your interface will be superior to the previous version, largely because you learn from the problems your users had with the current one and build a tighter interface for the next one.

As a co-worker of mine often says: It’s an Iterative Process.

Conclusion

So that’s what I have for you.  My long answer to a friends very simple question.  I hope I did not insult my friend, but the reality is that things are much more complicated than his initial question assumes.  That said, maybe my last section really answers the question he wanted answered.  Remember, User Interface Design is extraordinarily complicated.

A Final Note:  This topic does not take into account the whole Graphic Design aspect of UI design.  For that is an entirely differently field of study.

This summer I had to take a season off from captaining (too much on my plate already), but I would never give up playing, so I signed up as just a player.  I won’t bore you with the details, just a paraphrase of a Simspon’s character… Worst. Captain. Ever.  (And no I’m not talking about Janeway. Nerd Humor, sorry.)  Now, normally I’d just step in and take over, but like I said, too much on my plate already… and eventually someone did take over which helped to make the tourney very enjoyable.

Yet, this got me to thinking about what it meant to be a captain, what kind of person it takes, what it required, and what one got out of it. I kicked around a lot of notions, but eventually it occurred to me that anyone could be a decent captain if someone would just tell them how.  And then I started writing.

So here, at last, is my article detailing that How To Captain.

Go forth, read, and then sign up to captain.

So, if you see something you like here, tweet about it. Or Like it if you swing that way.

TOP FIVE BREWERIES I’M WATCHING LATELY…

Longtrail – Based out of middle Vermont where I spent most of my childhood Skiing.  They’ve put together some really great brews recently.  I’m especially big on their porter.

Clipper City/Heavy Seas – This one is local for me which I normally would discount, but they continue to please me with their beers.  Favs include the Siren Noire and the fact that they are going to have beers at Camden Yards and I can stop drinking the swill there.  Also, if you get a chance to do the brewery tour, the staff is made up of the friendliest people on earth.

Boulder – I’ve had tons of their beers on tap and in bottles and the Obovoid Oatmeal Stout in a bottle is hands down my favorite.  I go out of my way for this brew and regularly stock it at home.  Although I do have to say that a Flash Website sucks.

Breckenridge – So when I was actually in Breckenridge like 5 years ago for a friend’s wedding, we went here and I was unimpressed.  Lately though, these have started popping up all over the mid-atlantic and I’ve given them another chance to my pleasent surprise.  I suggested you do likewise.

Oliver’s – I’m not crazy about Oliver’s beers when I get them in bottles or at bars EXCEPT for at Pratt Street Alehouse.  Oliver’s when it’s hand pumped, is one of my favorite things on earth.  Nothing is better than Real Ale, and Oliver’s Best Bitter is one of my favorites.  Look for me there prior to just about any Red Sox vs Orioles game.

Anyway, hope you like the new host and notice the performance upgrades.

It all began one fateful day in the 7th grade. I was twelve years old and not a whole heck of a lot was going on in my life. I spent most of my free time either reading books (I had just graduated into the adult section of our town library), drawing maps and plotting dungeons for my grand D&D adventures or just tilting at lawn furniture. I was a kid with an over active imagination and I gave it its free reign.

Being an avid reader I had befriended my junior high school librarian pretty quickly and was working my through the stacks there. Well, in my school’s library there were also five Commodore Pet 4000 seriescomputers. In order to use one of these you had to sign up in advance. Well, I decided to give it a whirl, and signed up for the following Wednesday, a week away. During the seven days that followed I never once gave it a moments thought as to using the computer or what to do, I just signed up and went on reading, drawing maps, and having sword fights with trees.

The day arrive of my computer usage and I showed up at the library. I was signed up for terminal 2 and I set down at it and turned it on. A few minutes later I was staring at the word “READY” and underneath it a glowing green block. I tried to type a few words and got back some sort of error, undoubtably the famous “Syntax Error” we all known and love from our BASIC days. But that was the limit of what I could do. I knew no BASIC, I knew no Commands, I had no idea what-so-ever about what to next.

Now, ever the bashful kid, I didn’t want to look stupid in front of the other kids on the 4 other computers whom were typing away furiously. So I played it cool. I typed away furiously. Syntax Error. Syntax Error. Syntax Error. I did this for about 10 minutes. I nervously glanced around to see if anyone was watching me. I furiously generated a few more Syntax Errors. I knew there was more to these computers, but I had no idea how to do anything.

I was just on the verge of giving up entirely, when the kid next to me took pity. His name was Thom and he clearly had been watching my failures out of the corner of his idea. I’d say he was probably laughing cruelly at me under his breath, but Thom just wasn’t that type of kid. After watching my struggles, he leaned over and said, “Would you like some help?”

“Sure,” I answered.

“Type in POKE 52768,32″ he told me. (Actually, I remember the 52768 number hands down, but the 32, the value being assigned to 52768 may or may not be correct.)

Instantly all the text on the screen switched from pure upper case characters to all lower case characters. It was pure magic, so much so that I still remember that memory location (52768) three decades later.

“Type in 10 PRINT “Hello” followed by a return, then 20 GOTO 10 followed by a return. Now type run.”

I did this as he was telling me, and when I typed RUN and press return, my screen lit up with an endless stream of HELLOs. It was cool.

“My name is Thom,” he said and he stuck out his hand.

“I’m Glen. What else can I do?”

And that was it. That was the magic moment.

That night I went home and drew a keyboard on the back of a piece of cardboard so I could play that I was a computer whiz like Thom. The next day I signed up to use the computer every day after school for the next week. (Sign-ups only went a week out, so I would end up having to sign-up every week for the next week for the next 18 months until I graduated to the High School.)

And Thom was my willing guide through it all. He taught me about line numbers and GOTOs and FOR loops and DATA and READ statements. He taught me how to POKE any character onto the screen at any time (POKE 32768,42 put at asterisk in the upper left hand corner of the screen.) Within a week I was formulating my own very small programs, and within a month I was doing much larger ones. I was checking out books on how to write Commodore BASIC and scouring the libraries for everything I could find. I pestered my parents for a computer on a daily basis but they never gave in. (We didn’t end up getting a computer until I was 15, when I finally went out and bought my own Timex Sinclair TS1000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000 for $30 at the neighborhood CVS.)

Two months later saw the advent of my first game for the Science Fair to test hand eye coordination but really it was just me showing off that I could write a computer program. I remember that the program was about 45 lines long, a lot of input from Thom was in it, and it colossally sucked. I can still almost remember the program structure and even see it in my head. A lot of the little command details slip my mind though.

Pretty much every day since that one day almost thirty years ago I have spent programming a computer. (There was a break for about 4 years in there where I was going to school for English Literature, but even then I still spent a fair amount of time programming for an English Literature student.)

In those thirty years I’ve written so many programs I couldn’t even begin to count them. I’ve written just about every type of program you could imagine from Games to Web Browsers, in all kinds of languages like BASIC, PASCAL, Assembly, Java, Fortran, COBOL, C, Lisp, etc etc etc etc.

But in the end it all came down to that one day, thirty years ago, and that one moment where I changed all the characters on my screen from upper case to lower case. I basically performed magic for the first time using a computer, and I was hooked instantly.

Developer Drift is the process by which an unchallenged developer slowly moves from one project to the next. The project may be in house or external or something completely fabricated by the developer’s mind, but it basically means a developer is less interested in the current project than the project over the horizon. It’s the “Grass is always greener” truism made concrete in software engineering.

For me, this has taken the form of the fact that our customer wants really boring user interfaces which I can crank out like they are nothing. Problem is, I almost never crank them out, because they are meaningless and I never feel challenged/creative by them. (For me challenged=creative.) So I take forever to implement them and tend to make a lot of excuses on why this is taking so long. I feel justified in why it takes so long in the fact that when I am challenged, I really do crank out the code at an extraordinary rate which borders on the obscene when compared to average developers. I’m very prolific when I want to be.

The same thing was true when I was back in college studying English Literature. I could crank out a paper that I found interesting in no time flat, but assign me something that was pedantic and I’d sooner rip my own teeth out with a spoon (“because it will hurt more”).

So the real question I’m trying to find an answer to is “How do you deal with developer drift?” How do you stop people from losing interest when they are bored because the project has become boring? A project I used to work on is suffering from this very problem… they want to keep the team together, but the more boring stuff they do, the less likely they are to be able to keep the team together? Is there a way for this project to challenge it’s developers at the same time as doing boring things? Would contests or “feats of skill” help keep things from getting stale? Or should they just accept this as the life cycle of the developer, assume that people are going to drift away, and prepare for the next generation?

You tell me… how does your project deal with developer drift?

‘There’s a saying I love: “a camel is a horse designed by committee.” A variation is “a volvo is a porsche designed by committee.” Some of the best product advice I’ve ever heard goes something like “damn what the users want, charge towards your dream.” All of these statements are, of course, saying the same thing. When there are too many cooks in the kitchen all you get is a mess. And when too many people have product input, you’ve got lots of features but no soul.’

(Cut from http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/12/diggs-biggest-problem-are-its-users-and-their-constant-opinions-on-things/ )