Acer's jumping into the smartphone hurricane, and at least some of the handsets are using Windows Mobile. One of
their models has what appears to be a
Bob interface. I cannot figure out what is going through the minds of product managers and developers as they come up with these interfaces.
Product manager: "We need a breakthrough, a natural interface for this device that is instantly recognizable. I've got it! Let's make it a virtual office. People can store names and phone numbers by clicking on a cute Rolodex thingy, the calendar will look like a calendar people hang on the wall, the e-mail app we can represent with an envelope. We'll even have a virtual window people can "look" out of to see the weather. A real virtual office!"
And thus a tech legend is born.
Acer's jumping into the smartphone hurricane, and at least some of the handsets are using Windows Mobile. One of their models has what appears to be a Bob interface. I cannot figure out what is going through the minds of product managers and developers as they come up with these interfaces.
8 comments:
iBob
Well you've got to admit that Bob's an awesome name.
And was that a confession, Rob? :)
"What is going through developers minds..." Frankly, it's the thought that the end user is a friggin moron. Though frankly I do agree with them that this sort of interface is the future. That combined with something like the touch interface on the G & i Phones.
I've got a GPhone and love it. Not as "smooth" as the iPhone but then I really don't like the slickness of the iPhone interface.
Please don't blame crap like this on the software developers. On our own, we come up with interfaces like this:
sed "1,$s#/localbuild/thekey/1.2.3/#~/key123/#g"
Not that that's anything that would sell. Just saying, it's product managers and "human factors engineers" who come up with stuff like iBob and think it's kewl. We developers are rolling our eyes as we implement it, believe me!
Ok, I SWEAR, SWEAR on my grandmother's grave that what I am about to post is true. To quote that great bastion of philosophy, Jeff Foxworthy: "If I'm lying, I'm dying."
Just yesterday, one of our idiotic upper-level managers in our small company spent all day installing one of our beta products on his PC. And keep in mind during this story that this upper-upper manager works in the IT branch of the company.
It took him 5 hours to get it working. As a reference, I was in charge of testing a pre-pre-alpha version 2 months ago, and the cutting line was two hours. if it didn't work in two hours, it just didn't work. So for him to take a beta and get it done in 5 hours, is not saying much.
But according to him it is. He sent the following as part of a massively long email extolling his success to everyone in the company including every senior VP and CEO:
(something to note, we started the rebuild of the server OS and Database at 10:30am, after that was done, we started the install and configuration of [THE PRODUCT]. We saw our first ][PRODUCT] report in around 3:30pm… so in a “controlled” environment it is possible to start from scratch and see a [PRODUCT] report into GW in about 5 hours !)… I would classify this as the best case scenario, and not something to promise to a customer.
...
It is my experience that if we continue to put this type of sweat-equity into the entire Product Launch, we will deliver a successful product. I challenge the rest of the organization to think outside the box, and take steps similar to what we did today. I would expect you to see immediate benefits, just like we did. There is still a good amount of work to do around making the operational side of [THE PRODUCT] more intuitive.
And THAT, in a nutshell, is how you end up with such shitty products, Lou. Just like "Anonymous" said before me.
And was that a confession, Rob? :)
No, uBob, iRob.
LOL
But will you have a virtual slutty secretary to come sit on your lap and take dictation once in a while?
Oh, yeah, that is what internet porn is for.....nevermind....
Post a Comment