I’ve become a regular reader of Creating Passionate Users and the Kathy Sierra’s latest article Schrödinger’s Product is another excellent instalment.
However, in today’s article Kathy trots out the standard Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment. Now I’ve been blessed with feline companions for 15 years, so I might know a thing or two about cat behaviour. And if you think you’re going to lock a cat in a metal box with a vial of poison, you’re crazy.
Everyone who even trots out this thought experiment hasn’t factored in the general cussed bloody-mindedness of cats. If you try something like this, instead of having a locked metal box containing a cat that may be alive or may be dead, you’ll have a locked metal box containing a definitely pissed off cat which when the box is opened, will rip your face off and disappear in a blur of fur. Later, after you return from hospital, you’ll find that he’s pooped on your pillow and peed in your shoe. But you’ll have had your fun with locked metal boxes and vials of poison.
Of course, the actual article is really good.
Aesthetics mean more today than they did even fifteen years ago. And don’t be thinking that this does not apply to your product. Remember, this is like dating… it’s not “selling out” to wear your good shirt on that first date, and first impressions matter deeply. For that cat, remember, that first look was life or death. (yeah, yeah, yeah, that was different — radioactive decay and all that — but I’m taking metaphoric license)
One of the reasons I sweat every pixel in the products I’m building for my employer is because these products don’t just wind up in the hands of IT developers (and increasingly business analysts), but they are also the primary visible artefact of our core product. So when the sales team wants to demo our product, they turn to the GUI tools — my pixels — and rely on that to wow the audience.
It’s incredibly rewarding to hear stories about a CIO blurting out, “We’ve got to have that!” in response to seeing the UI I crafted.