BKeeney Briefs

I’ve written a few times about The Sixty One. I thought it was a great example of a web app that works well.  I was able to discover some great new bands and for a few of them I track their progress to see if they come to town and play.

Unfortunately, The Sixty One is a prime example of how redesigning the user interface can make your existing user base very angry and make them leave.  Common complaints about the new design are “antisocial and unnavigable” and I happen to agree with them.  The new changes made a great music discovery site not nearly as much fun and discover new bands.  It sure looks pretty though.

Microsoft has gone through similar criticism with the Office ribbon.  Some people love it and others hate it.  The few times I’ve used Office with the ribbon I was frustrated beyond belief because of the way *I* learn how to use applications.

A friend recently commented to me that they learned to like the ribbon.  I’m not sure that Microsoft would get that benefit (of time) if Office wasn’t ubiquitous.  I can say that as a Mac user I’m not excited about getting the ribbon in the next version of Office but them I’m already using Pages and Numbers more and more because they do everything I need them to do for far less money and less bloat.

From my own experience, we went through interface changes on Task Timer, our Mac/Windows desktop application that tracks your time.  It’s a very simple interface.  Version 1 and 2 let you track one project/task combination at a time.  People complained so we opened it up to five.  People (mainly lawyers – go figure) said that five simultaneous timers weren’t enough so we made it unlimited.

We rewrote the interface to allow an unlimited number of simultaneous timers and project and task combinations.  The beta users were very happy and we were happy too (since we use it every day as well).  We released and the very first bug report was from a long-timer user who complained that we destroyed the simplicity of the interface.  I guess there’s no winning.  Thankfully, with a few minor tweaks we were able to make that customer satisfied but most users will just walk away in disgust.  It’s not easy to get a second chance.

Every time FaceBook changes their layout there’s always a round of complaints.  I generally fall into the group that is willing to work with it but I do have to admit that I generally don’t mind the changes after I’ve gotten used to it.  But then, I also find that the new interface isn’t that much better than the old one – usually.

I sometimes think that companies redesign their website and products because they’ve got designers on staff and they think the designers need to earn their keep.  Don’t fall into that trap and change the interface ‘just because’.

Interface changes should be well thought out to satisfy existing users and to get new ones.  Doing so without some serious thought and effort, both before and after the change, can result in people abandoning your product or service.  Tough to stay in business that way.

Any other examples of a bad user interface change?

Happy New Year everyone!  This time of year is an awesome time to review the previous year and make plans for the upcoming one.

Many of us charge clients by the hour regardless if we tell them that or not.  In a fixed bid project we estimate how long it will take to do the various parts of the project and then give the client a value based on those hourly estimates.

Reliable and accurate estimates are just the first step in making your business profitable.  The final step is going back and seeing if you estimated properly.  The only way to do this is to track your time on a project by project basis.

There are variety of tools available for doing this, but Task Timer, one of our products, is a very simple and inexpensive ($24.95) way of doing this.  Task Timer is designed to be simple and easy to use.  It’s as simple as pressing a button!

Setting up Task Timer isn’t much harder.  Add your project, add the major tasks you want to track, and add your initial estimates and start using it.  The new built-in estimate graphing gives you a minute by minute graphical view into how you’re estimate is tracking in comparison to your actual time spent.

For many of our consulting clients we give them a discount rate when they pre-purchase a block of hours (usually 40 hours).  Task Timer’s new estimates feature makes tracking the hours used really easy.  When the client purchases a new block of hours simply create a new task for the project and put the block of hours into the estimate field.  Task Timer is now tracking your bulk hours used for the client!

Many people who have purchased Task Timer have told us that it pays for itself in the first week!  We can’t verify their claims but we can say that when we created Task Timer and started implementing it for all of our projects we found that our billable hours rose over 15%.  It seems we were not very accurate reporting how much we worked on any particular project at the end of the day.  If we reported (really guestimated) our hours at the end of the week the numbers were even worse!

For additional information about Task Timer, please see this link:  http://www.bkeeney.com/products/tasktimer4

Download links:

Mac OS X:  http://www.bkeeney.com/downloads/macintoshdownloads/download/36-tasktimer

Windows:  http://www.bkeeney.com/downloads/download/38-tasktimer

Tracking your time is a good reality check.  Were those products you were spending so much time on really worth it?  How much time are your blogging?  What about video production for those training videos?  For that big size month project what did you get right (and more importantly wrong) in your estimates?

Plan on getting a handle on your estimating skills in 2010.  Task Timer is just one of the tools you can use.

I was reviewing this years client list and the work we’ve done this year.  We have a lot to be thankful for and we really appreciate their business and like to send them a small token of appreciation during the holiday season.  We hope they come back for more work and the gift, trivial really, is just a way of saying thanks.

I started thinking about our clients.  With the exception of a handful, most of them are not in the Kansas City area.  Heck, most of them aren’t even in the Midwest.  So what this means is that we never see our clients in a face-to-face meeting and have to rely upon phone calls (both traditional and via Skype), emails, instant messages, and the occasional screen share or video conference.

This makes managing a project harder in my opinion.  There is so much information that gets passed when you’re sitting across from a person that you’d be hard pressed to write it all down.  It’s hard to get that same level of info electronically.

I get a chuckle when I hear about companies looking to offshore their development work to developers in developing countries.  Sure, it’s possible and you might be able to save some money but there’s a hidden cost.

In an Cutter Consortium survey Link over 20 years and 8000 projects they found that offshore projects reduced the cost of projects to $3.2 million versus the $3.5 million it typically cost by doing it on-shore.  From a time perspective the on-shore project took 12.6 months and the offshore took 9.6 months.

The real kicker is that the defect rates for offshore projects were an incredible 7565 versus the 2702 for onshore projects.  So even though the offshore project cost less and took less time, the company had to fix nearly three times more defects.  In the long run I’m not sure the offshore projects saved anything.

In the same study Agile methodology came out looking like a winner.  The average agile project took 7.8 months with a cost of $2.2 milling with a defect rate of 1372.

Last summer we worked on an agile project.  It takes some time getting used to but after the initial learning curve the project went very fast and the client was very happy with the results.  If you have a big project you should probably think about using agile.

I apologize for digressing from the main topic.  Certainly one of the of biggest challenges with a long-distance client is communication.  I suspect this is why the offshore projects have higher defect rates.  Everything needs to be written down and communicated – mostly via email.  Throw in cultural and language differences and you have a recipe for misunderstandings (if not outright disasters).

A couple of things that I’ve learned is that the communication skill of each client is different.  Some can handle an email with a list of questions.  Others can’t so you end up with single point emails.  Email management is a must!

We use a bug tracking system and encourage our clients to log in and use it.  Most get it and love being able to track what’s been fixed and what hasn’t.  Others just won’t use it (despite regular prodding) and resort to emails.  Depending upon the size of the project, it might just be easier to transcribe those emails into your bug tracking system.

Long-distance clients need special attention.  They need reassurance that you are really working on their project.  For some clients we do a 3P report where we report on Progress, Problems and give the Plan for the upcoming week (sounds sort of agile, no?).  With the web becoming an integral part of our lives and business, learning how to work with clients from anywhere in the world is an important skill.

How do you deal with long-distance clients?  Do you try to have a face-to-face meeting with them?  Do you think you do anything special for your clients?

It’s been a while since I’ve given an update on our marketing.  Very early on we decided to start integrating social media into our portfolio.  As you’ve probably seen, we’re now active on Linked-In, FaceBook, and Twitter to name a few (the person doing our marketing is probably on a dozen more and, really, I don’t want to know all of them).  Part of our routine when announcing updates is to make sure we post on all of them as well.

I’ll be honest that I was a bit skeptical at first.  Maybe I’m just old enough to not ‘get it’.  I understand the importance of search rankings and all that but the social media thing has been somewhat of a mystery.

One of the first things we installed on our various websites was Google Analytics and I must admit that I get a kick out of seeing where people are coming from and what they’re search for.  Google Analytics is why I know people are coming from the social media sites.  I find it fascinating that some relatively obscure comment or article is drawing people.  As they say, the more eyes that see your product the better chance they’ll at least try it.  Leading them to your website is at least half the battle.

Since we’re heavily into Mac OS X software it comes as no surprise that a lot of referral traffic comes from MacUpdate www.macupdate.com and Version Tracker www.versiontracker.com.  Windows traffic isn’t nearly as clear cut and we’re working on how to get better exposure on that platform.  It’s obvious that the users of the two platforms research and consume their software differently.

I’ve heard some of the buzz about Woopra but I’ll wait a little bit before delving into it.  If you have any first hand experience with it I’d love to hear about it.  What is its strength and is it really useful for a small business like us?

The other thing we’re doing is making sure we get our press releases out.  I hate doing them myself because I have enough stuff on my plate as it is (and marketing speak is anathema to an engineer).  I’m glad to have turned that responsibility over to someone who likes doing them (at least more than me).  We are using prMac http://prmac.com/ and it is obviously making a difference because of its distribution network.  I find links from all over the internet based on the press releases.

Certainly one of the issues we struggle with is finding the time to do it all.  We’re lucky, to some extent, by having multiple employees who can do a bit of everything.  We hired a part time marketing person to help us out with all this stuff.  I know a lot of you don’t have that luxury.  How do you find the time for marketing?  Do you have any marketing tips for the small, independent software developer?

I had a brief conversation with another REALbasic consultant the other day. We both remarked on how often the consulting inquiries never go anywhere. I would say that it’s price but half the time they never even bother to reply after the initial contact.

I’ve even found that potential clients that post on the REALbasic Developers list and the ARBP Find a Developer page never respond to emails. It seems odd especially when I know many of the people that post on those two sites don’t get any responses from developers to begin with! I know this because after a couple of months I’ll do a very short “Hey, have you found an RB developer yet,” email to those I don’t initially respond to and I get a response more often then not saying how the response was poor by RB developers. Go figure.

Well, to be fair to us RB developers, sometimes the specs are worded pretty poorly or are so specific that unless you know exactly what they’re asking for we don’t respond. Other times they’re so broadly worded that the project could mean anything or they’re lacking so many details you start to wonder if they really know what they want. One project that went through the network had a 20 page requirements document. Awesome, I thought, finally someone that knows what they want. Unfortunately, it only had a single page of what their current system is and does and nothing in regards to database details, screenshots, or anything else really helpful. In other words it was 20 pages of technical jargon that didn’t mean anything to a typical REALbasic application (which they were pretty sure they wanted).

A few years ago I used to have these nice formal proposals that I used for everything. These multi-page documents, contracts really, took me about a half day to customize for each project. After a few years of wasting time writing documents I now just send a summary email now because most people aren’t very serious about getting their project done. Let me revise that statement: They’ve not very serious unless it’s going to be dirt cheap.

So what has your experience been? Why do you think clients don’t bother to respond? Have you found the RB developer networks to be useful or not?

Is the Internet Age killing civility?  I wonder about this a lot.  The REALbasic Forums and NUG posts are often filled with vitriol (always wanted to use that word) and personal attacks.  It’s as if the poster didn’t even realize that another human being is on the other end reading their post.

I’ve had bug reports that are very insulting.  Reporting the bug is one thing but often times the comments get personal.  I’ve had people swear at me in an email.  I think that they’re used to being ignored by tech support so they think that being as mean as possible somehow gets more attention.

In those few cases I simply put their tech support question at the bottom of the queue and deal with them after all the other stuff.  Occasionally I respond via email that real people read their tech support emails and that we were offended.  Mostly they write back to apologize.  Sometimes.

I can understand their problem to a certain extent.  When your software isn’t behaving and keeping the customer from doing their work it’s a huge problem.  If you’ve ignored their emails and phone calls then I can understand why they’d be rude but I pride myself in being responsive to my customers.  It takes but a minute to respond with a “we received your email.”

Generally phone calls go better because there’s an instant verbal connection.  We’ve also been taught since childhood to be polite on the phone.  Maybe it’s the lack of a ‘connection’ that causes the problem with email and forums.

A few years ago I was dealing with a developer out of California.  The other developers on my team hated dealing with “Jack” because he was always very rude, uncompromising and swore like a sailor.  He wasn’t a nice guy.

Jack called me one morning while he was driving on the freeway and started reading me the riot act and calling me every name under the sun and asking me why my code didn’t do something.  I was very mad and was about ready to tell him off, but decided that would get me fired pretty quick.  Jack was being unreasonable and not being civil so I simply told him to call me back when he wanted to treat me like a human being.

Silence and then an “okay” from the other end.  Jack hung up and I knew I was going to get a phone call from the boss.  Time to start updating the resume, I thought.

Sure enough, thirty minutes later my boss calls up – ecstatic.  “What did you say to Jack?” he asked.  I told him and all he said was, “Wow.”  Seems that Jack had been tormenting developers for years and it was even worse than I had been told.

Oh, and Jack called me that afternoon and apologized.  I never had a problem with Jack again.  The drawback is that I had to deal with Jack again and again because no one else wanted to.

How do you deal with the tech support emails and forum posts that are not civil?  Do you ignore them?  Do you let them know that their behavior is unacceptable?

People hate you if you’re a developer and you sell software.  Yes, it’s true.  Get over it.  No matter how hard you work at creating the perfect application someone will nit-pick something.  It doesn’t matter if you spent a year in development and six months in beta testing, someone will log a bug within the first 30 minutes of release.  Okay, the time frames are exaggerated but the end result is the same.

This means that you, as a developer, have to have thick skin.  Someone will always complain about something.  It happens all the time.  If you add feature X, users will complain that they “need” feature Y.  If you fix a bug and cause another one users will complain that your software is buggy and unstable.

If you panic every time you get a negative email then you’re probably in the wrong business.  Email is notorious for giving the wrong impression because you can’t tell if someone is joking or not.  Add the fact that writing is an art form that most people haven’t mastered and you’ll often misinterpret their intent.

Don’t even think about reading a review of your software by yourself.  Very few reviewers will give your software a perfect rating.  If they did, they wouldn’t be doing their job.  They get paid to point out a flaw, missing feature or bug in your software.  Have a friend or a spouse read the review first to get a relatively unbiased opinion of the review.  Then honestly look at the review and work on improving your software.  It’s an opportunity to improve.

Websites like VersionTracker allow feedback from users on software they’ve downloaded.  Be very careful when reviewing the feedback from those sites as generally happy people don’t feel inclined to give feedback.  Unhappy people like to spread their misery so bugs and missing features can cause a rating to go down quickly.

On the flip side, the next time you think about sending off an email or posting onto a support forum, think about how the developers might take your post.  Is it incendiary or is it respectful?  They’re human just like you.