BenCrowder.net » Usability http://bencrowder.net I make stuff. Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:02:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Back to Mac http://bencrowder.net/blog/2006/05/back-to-mac/ http://bencrowder.net/blog/2006/05/back-to-mac/#comments Wed, 03 May 2006 20:38:13 +0000 Ben http://outsidethebox.blankslate.net/2006/05/03/back-to-mac/ Finally got a Mac at work. Mmm. :) It’s really, really, really nice to be back on a real computer. We still haven’t figured out the network situation yet (they kind of don’t want us to put a hub in), so I have to switch the Ethernet cable between my Windows box and my G4. It’s a pain, yes. But my joy at being able to use a Mac again has overflowed enough that I don’t care quite so much (yet).

Isn’t that what software design is about? Making users happy? And yet all too often software doesn’t do that. It can, but it doesn’t. ‘Tis a pity. Whatever they do, I want the software I write to make people as happy as OS X and WordPress make me. (And vi, for that matter.) For me, this is what Getting Real is about, at its center: more user-focused development by paring away unnecessary features and getting the core things right. It’s the Right Thing. And it matters. It really, really matters.

[tags]Mac, OS X, WordPress, vi[/tags]

]]> http://bencrowder.net/blog/2006/05/back-to-mac/feed/ 0 On reducing guilt http://bencrowder.net/blog/2006/03/on-reducing-guilt/ http://bencrowder.net/blog/2006/03/on-reducing-guilt/#comments Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:17:27 +0000 Ben http://digitalbridge.blankslate.net/2006/03/10/on-reducing-guilt/ Can’t think of an idea for software to write? Check out Reducing Guilt is the Killer App — they’ve really got a point. Getting rid of extraneous guilt makes for great apps. (And by “extraneous” I mean guilt that really shouldn’t be there. If you murder someone, you’d darn well better feel guilt. And read Dostoevsky, for that matter.)

[tags]guilt, Dostoevsky[/tags]

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