Abbett.org

How to promise, when you can only guess?

“When is it going to be done?” is a reasonable question and we as software developers should try to come up with the best answer we can based on our experience and analysis. What we should not do, however, is treat our answer as solemn oath.

It's hard not to nod your head while reading David Heinemeier's latest post on the 37signals blog, especially if you're a software developer.

Having tested the waters of consulting as of late, I also couldn't help shaking my head. One the one hand, software is full of unknown-unknowns -- even with mature UX design materials, there are minute implementation details that are hard, if not impossible, to discover until you start working. On the other, this post leaves unanswered a huge question.

How do you quote a project to your customer?

I can't imagine that every Agile shop insists on time-and-materials, with no deadlines, and no functionality commitments.

Honestly, this isn't a rant -- I desperately want to know how to solve this problem. Readers, please share your experiences.

ThinkPad vs. iPad

As I sit here, not really watching the Super Bowl, my laptop is propped comfortably on my leg, one arm is draped over the back of the sofa, and the other scrolls casually through articles on Wired.com.

Which is when I realize-- an iPad in this situation would be pretty awkward. I'd probably have to hold it up constantly with one hand, suspending it in the air so it's at the proper distance from my face. Scrolling would take two hands, one to hold it, the other to drag across the screen. And when I'm inspired to blog by something I read, I imagine I'd have to struggle with copy-and-paste as I do on my iPod Touch and then use that silly on-screen keyboard.

For now -- the ThinkPad X61 reigns in my living room.

Boston.com offering data sets

While the subject of this infographic had my eyes rolling, what's really interesting is that Boston.com will be making data sets available for readers to generate their own visualizations.

The Usability Conundrum: Why "Move Your Money" won't work

Well, why Move Your Money probably won't work beyond a core group of ultra-committed individuals.

I'm a good candidate for the Move Your Money campaign: I'm progressively-minded, I like supporting the little guys, and I live in a town with a good local savings bank. But will I transfer my money from Bank of America? Absolutely not.

There are two major issues for me, and if I'm right, they're major issues for everyone else:

• Access to expansive, free ATM network
• Online banking that doesn't suck

Say what you will about BOFA, no small bank can compete on both these points.

To be fair, the SUM Network is a good attempt at an independent ATM network, but the promise of ubiquitious no-fee ATMs still hasn't yet been fulfilled.

As for online banking, I don't understand why there hasn't yet been a SUM-style initiative to pool efforts into one great online banking tool. (Is there? A really good one? I want to know!) I briefly had an account with Brookline Bank, and its online banking was years behind ShawmutFleetBankBostonAmerica.

Online banking isn't rocket science. If hundreds of savings banks and credit unions chipped in for a kick-ass user experience team to design and implement the next generation of online banking, they'd have a fighting chance.

As loath as I am to reference Apple, Apple continues to prove that just having technology X isn't enough -- you need to craft the full experience to keep your customers delighted. Come on, tablet computing has been around for ages -- but a little spit-shine on the UI gets the tech world all hot and foamy.

Simple SMTP tool for developing on Windows

When I do web development on my local box (running Windows 7) I never have an easy time testing out e-mail functionality, since Windows doesn't come with an SMTP server.

smtp4dev sits in your system tray and listens on port 25 for e-mail messages. It doesn't send them -- it lets you see all the message details in a neat and simple interface.

It's free, it's just what I need, and it's now a standard tool for my dev work.

User Experience Reading List

Thanks to the various blogs and mailing lists I read, I see lots of great recommendations for books on or related to interaction design. Lately, though, they've been piling up -- too much actual interaction design work to have time to read!

Here's what in the queue now:

• Prototyping: A Practitioner's Guide by Todd Zaki Warfel
• The Designful Company by Marty Neumeier
• Designers Don't Read by Austin Howe
• Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton

Currently in progress:

• Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler
• CSS Mastery by Andy Budd

Need to go back and reread more thoroughly:

• Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton
• Designing for the Digital Age by Kim Goodwin