Better Products Through Documentation

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One of my goals a decade ago was to create more usable products. One of the ways I figured out how to refine my aesthetic for this was to use documentation (help files or manuals) as a guide post. When I write documentation I focus on consistency and on explainability. If something is easy to explain to the intended audience and it fits a continuity across the product then usually the product is solidly-designed.

As the decade has past I don’t need to write the documentation as much to spot these issues. Now, as I design new components or entire products, I can see the documentation in my head. In fact, I often use the question “How do you explain that to a customer?” while designing or reviewing development work.

For instance, with powerOne version 3 we had a situation where we were trying to decide on a format for a new function call for graphing. For scatter plots it is written one way, for bar graphs another. Well, that is too confusing. (And we are talking about the most technical of our customers here, by the way, as only a small percentage actually write their own templates.) So we simplified the function call so that they don’t have to think so hard about the parameters. In other words, we decided it was better to ask the user to submit a piece of information we would ignore (because we know the answer based on the data) then ask them to do it two different ways.

I correlate this problem with the dreaded IF statement. IF I have this then I do it one way but IF I have this then I do it another. I hate these. IF statements require the customer to remember too much about the product.

I’m sure when Dan Bricklin invented the spreadsheet he didn’t have much choice but to introduce the notation we have all become familiar with in spreadsheets. IF you are entering text then just enter it but IF you are entering a formula then start it with = but IF your text starts with an equals or a math symbol then… Yeah. The reality is that that notation worked at a time when computers were only really used by experts and everything was hard. The last half dozen years are introducing an era when everyone uses a computer and these “non-experts” aren’t going to take the time to learn fancy notations, to remember the IF statements.

Of course the ultimate goal is to completely eliminate the IF statements and completely eliminate the documentation. To make something amazingly powerful that needs almost zero explanation is the ultimate goal. I may never reach it but it is my goal none-the-less.

Anxiety

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Thursday morning last week I woke up at 4am in a panic. We had shipped powerOne version 3 to Apple the day before, it was the first time in months I could stop and assess what was going on. And at 4am my world was collapsing.

Sales have slipped. Six months ago we were a top 10 finance category iPad app and then we were a 10-15 ranked app. And then we weren’t the top selling financial calculator app, bested for a day here by a hideously ugly copy of an HP 10b and another day by the HP 12c itself. Our ratings had dropped for a week, into the low 20s then into the high 20s and then into the low 30s. (iPhone stayed steady but when panicking details like this don’t matter.)

It wasn’t like I didn’t see this coming. A couple of our key competitors released iPad versions recently and it had an impact. This wasn’t new but on this day I still couldn’t stop the anxiety.

And then a new product we are releasing next week, a project I couldn’t be prouder of, went into review and stayed there for 12 hours, 18 hours, 24 hours and counting. I never had an app in review that long. My brain went nuts. They were going to reject it! What did we do wrong? What was I going to do to get it approved before Wednesday? Who was I going to beg and plead with because I didn’t want to call two multi-billion dollar companies we developed this with and tell them we can’t launch?

And of course, my brain snowballed from there. The sales will never recover! We are doomed! I’ve never going to get to work on my new project I am so desperate to complete! Our apps suck anyway! There are going to be a million bugs to fix in the new releases and I’m traveling for a week! And the sales are never going to recover anyway! I’m going to have to get a job! My family will have to move! We will be living on the streets! We won’t have anything to eat!

I was gone. My brain was fried. And at 4am last Thursday morning all I could do was lay on the couch and read a book. I couldn’t sleep because every time I shut my eyes the panic returned.

—

I don’t do that often. Once when I was 19 I went through one of these and I never thought I’d see the other end. I’m a ridiculously rational person and hate being driven by emotion. And all last Thursday was was raw emotion, frazzled and exhausted.

20 years later at least I know better. The stress always subsides, the anxiety always goes away. The key is to just put one foot in front of the other. So I wrote documentation and made my calls and had my Thursday meetings. To most I was a duck on the water: calm as can be on the surface but paddling furiously underneath.

I didn’t sleep well Thursday night, either. No big surprise. But Friday was better. Again, 4am. But this time our category position recovered some and our sales recovered some. By Friday I could remember that we have an amazing revision coming plus three new revenue streams, all in the next week or so. I dove into my new project, feeling creative and refreshed after a forced hiatus from our new product, and got a ton done before the sun rose. And before lunch the app that sat in review for over 40 hours was approved.

The stress is there — we need to get the revenues up — but the excitement about the new opportunities returned.

Of course I still won’t sleep. I’m too excited!

Former RIM Boss Sought Strategy Shift Before He Quit

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As reported by Reuters:

[Jim] Balsillie [former co-CEO and co-Chariman] hoped to allow major wireless companies in North America and Europe to provide service for non-BlackBerry devices routed through RIM’s proprietary network, a major break with the BlackBerry-only strategy pursued by RIM since its inception.

The plan would have let the carriers use the RIM network to offer inexpensive data plans, limited to social media and instant messaging, to entice low-tier customers to upgrade from no-frills phones to smartphones.

I find this very interesting. Obviously the “hardware” portion of the company won out and maybe that was the right choice. We will know for certain in the next few years. But what an interesting turn of events this would have been.

Part of what I find amusing about this report is that RIM has never been able to, in my mind, take advantage of this carrier relationship in the past to do what Balsillie is advocating now, even when he was CEO and had control over the strategic direction. RIM always had two different systems in place. The first, called BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES), was aimed at corporations, making it possible for them to sync Exchange and Lotus Notes calendars and contacts all over the place and allowed IT departments to control devices. The second was BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), which is the piece sold through the carriers.

I always found BIS to be weak. Yes, it handled BlackBerry Messenger but I always thought it should do what iCloud does, sync individual’s contacts and calendars across devices, but do it across all devices and all carriers. I think that ship has sailed.

RIM continues to fascinate me like Apple did a decade and a half ago. It feels like a company with promise that just needs to find its way.

Apps to Apple: powerOne Version 3 Awaiting Review

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Back to my regular programming tomorrow but … we shipped version 3 of powerOne Finance Pro and Lite and powerOne Scientific Pro and Lite to Apple today. Hopefully we’ll get a speedy review and have it available for all of you next week. This will make a very exciting week next week as we have another long-term project shipping as well, which I’ll tell you about next Wednesday.

I wrote previously about all the cool stuff going into version 3 of powerOne. Here’s a quick summary:

  • Graph function equations, bar graphs and scatter plots. Zoom, pan, trace and evaluate. Implemented into many bundled and Library templates plus the ability to add graphing to your own custom templates.
  • Advanced math including programmer’s math, complex numbers, matrices, calculus, and more.
  • VoiceOver support (I was told we are the first calculator to do this.)
  • Designate templates as favorites.
  • Filter the template list on a category or your favorites.
  • Custom categories when creating your own templates.
  • iPad retina graphics
  • Finally, our Lite versions get In App purchase. We have bundled our most popular templates and are offering them for an introductory price of $0.99 per pack. Topics cover graphing, finance, conversions, mortgages, statistics, investing and more. The advanced math functions mentioned above are also available.

All of the upgrades are free to current customers.

Internet Freedom Is An Understatement

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The Internet is for everyone and the kids of the next generation see it as a right, not an option. That’s the basis of Fred Wilson’s post this morning, Life, Liberty and Blazing Broadband. I think it is an excellent article and worth the read, but I wanted to point out Aviah Laor’s comment, which could easily serve as a rallying cry for why SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and the like are bad for us:

Internet freedom is an understatement.

It’s the freedom to find better work. It’s the freedom to open your own gig. It’s the freedom to buy without intermediates that take 50% of the value. It’s the freedom to speak to a doctor and know what the hell he is talking about. It’s the freedom to talk to a lawyer and know what the hell he is talking about. It’s the freedom to get education without mortgaging your next 20 years for college fees and textbook publishers. It’s the freedom to follow politicians real actions and not their spin doctors.

It’s the freedom to exchange goods, services and needs instead of being milked for the next marketing driven nothing. It’s the freedom of artists to spread their art directly to fans, and to fans to get the art. It’s the freedom of never ending creativity.

It’s freedom. Period.

Right on!