Jason Fried of Basecamp is only the most recent to come out strongly condemning the hype around work chat, and perhaps, the leading protagonist in the market: Slack. He enumerates a short list of positives (4), and then a staggeringly long list of negatives (17). I will synthesize his points down to these: work chat is good for quick-and-dirty, once-in-awhile discussions, and for team building, but the costs are considerable, since work chat is tiring, obsessive, interruptive, and leads to focusing people’s attention on the near-term, while fracturing our concentration on what’s really important. 

Fried’s mantra is ‘real-time sometimes, asynchronous most of the time’, which I completely buy. I am also a big fan of his recommendation that people should break out of unproductive chat mazes, and ‘write it up’ instead. Long form writing can break the chain of opinionated chatifying, and lead to a basis for deliberative reasoning.

Go read it. I’ll wait.

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Many of the problems that beset work chat in business contexts arise from social crowding, when the dynamics of small groups are constrained or sidetracked because too many people move into groups to participate, when they aren’t actually members of the set of people doing the work.

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But, as in other recent pieces about Slack (see Samuel Hulick’s Why I’m breaking up with Slack), Fried never explicitly discusses the sizes of the groups using work chat, and how group size may factor into the negatives these authors describe.

My thesis is that work chat works best in the context of small teams, which I call sets, groups of less than 10 or 12. Many of the problems that beset work chat in business contexts arise from social crowding, when the dynamics of small groups are constrained or sidetracked because too many people move into groups to participate, when they aren’t actually members of the set of people doing the work.

Sets are characterized by small group social dynamics. There is frequent and reciprocal communication, so a member can post a request for help and get a response quickly, for example. There is a greater degree of trust than larger groups, in general. There is a greater likelihood of strong interpersonal connection – strong ties – than out-of-set relationships.

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There are few who would advocate a massive chat room of 100,000 employees palavering with each other to steer a company, but we are making more of less the same mistake – social crowding – when we allow 25 people to argue product strategy in a Slack channel. It’s a difference only of scale, and the same error: applying a communication tool that does not work well at the scale of the social group.

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But if a set of nine marketing folks is joined by (invaded by?) a dozen out-of-set members in a Slack channel where the marketers are trying to get their work done, the dynamics can go sideways. There is greater noise in the channel as the interlopers raise questions, throw their opinions around, and take sides in discussions. This crowding is worse that the noise, since the ‘tourists’ can lead to a decrease in the benefits of tight, in-group dynamics, and a hollowing out of purpose and shared goals. 

So there are several threads that follow from social crowding:

• Social norms have to be expressly promoted to keep chat channel populations low, if they are going to be the site of effective team work. (Note: I mean the work done by teams, not the somewhat nebulous, rah-rah term on the posters in the lunchroom.)
  
• Chat is not the only sort of social mechanism that we should apply to work communications, and specifically, when we look at larger-then-set social groups there are better ways to communicate. We do much of our work as soloists and set members, but we are also members of larger scenes – groups of up to 150 more or less, made up of networks of sets. Effective communications at that level require more than – or other than – chat. Consider Fried’s suggestion toward a synchronous long-form ‘writing it down’ as just one example.
• This is a specific instance of the general issue of ‘work as a commons’. The folks that naturally most closely tied to some definable work activities – like our marketing team, above – should have the largest say in how their work is performed, and the decision-making about their work practices. That’s what they share in common. While those farther from that work – the freeloaders that are crowding the chat with their noise, interruptions, and influence – should be kept from the set’s workings if that interaction is negative.

In the long run, vendors like Slack and its competitors will need to create a multi-scale suite of communications approaches that align with social groupings. Work chat may be best suited for much of what sets need, and other approaches – like we see in enterprise social networks (work media), work management tools, and workforce communications solutions – are likely to be better suited to work at the scene level, or the enterprise scale, the scale of networks of scenes, or spheres. 

There are few who would advocate a massive chat room of 100,000 employees palavering with each other to steer a company, but we are making more of less the same mistake – social crowding – when we allow 25 people to argue product strategy in a Slack channel. It’s a difference only of scale, and the same error: applying a communication tool that does not work well at the scale of the social group.

@jasonfried:

Excellent followup by @stoweboyd re: root cause of most communication issues… Too many people involved. https://t.co/X0FiMDpuro

— Jason Fried (@jasonfried) March 8, 2016

As much as I like to use Workflow for every task I don't want to perform manually, until last week there were still some things I couldn't automate with the app. Those tasks were utterly specific: converting HTML and rich text back to Markdown (with my beloved html2text in Python), or assembling iOS screenshots with pretty device frames (with LongScreen). With the release of Workflow 1.4.4 today, I can finally integrate these two key tasks into Workflow's automation, and I'm in love with the results.

Overlaying Images

Since Workflow added the ability to combine images from the Photos app with its action extension, I've stopped using scripts I had in Pythonista to create images for MacStories reviews. While Workflow was a great way to stitch multiple images together, however, it couldn't overlay an image on top of another – something that could be easily done in Python by pasting an image on top of a background. This is exactly what Workflow brings with today's update.

The new 'Overlay Image' action allows you to overlay an image (defined in the Image field of the action) on top of another image passed as input. The action offers various customizable parameters: you can tweak the size of the image you're overlaying, set rotation and opacity, and even adjust the position where the image will be overlaid choosing from five presets or by entering any coordinate you need through variables. If you don't want to set parameters beforehand, there's also an option to show an image editor and overlay the image manually. The combined image will be the output, so you can pass it to an action and save it to your library.

This is precisely what I needed to turn one of the few remaining tasks I couldn't automate into a flexible and powerful workflow. For a long time, I've wanted to automate the creation of composite images made of iOS screenshots and iOS device frames provided by Apple. With Workflow's new overlay action and its Photos integration, I can now put screenshots for the iPhone 6s Plus (both portrait and landscape) and the iPad Pro (only landscape; I don't need portrait support) into device images without doing anything manually except picking them.

These screenshots were overlaid and combined with my workflow.

To play around with this:

• Download the workflow here;
• Grab my edited templates and assets for all three orientations.

Once you've downloaded the .zip file, save all images into Workflow's iCloud Drive folder¹ and double check their filenames – they should match the ones used in the workflow.

Here's what the workflow does: given iPhone 6s Plus or iPad Pro screenshots in the supported orientations, the workflow creates framed screenshots and combines them in one final image. The best part: you can mix and match device types (such as two iPhone screenshots and one iPad Pro screenshot) and the result will be a composite image featuring all the correct device frames. At the end, the result is saved to your photo library.

The workflow is built to accept screenshots shared from the share sheet in the Photos app. Whether one or multiple screenshots are detected, the workflow then checks for each image's width and uses the Overlay Image action to put them into iPhone 6s Plus or iPad Pro frames. As I said above, I only needed to support landscape mode on the iPad Pro, but adding portrait support is easy enough – just create another If block to check for the width of an iPad Pro screenshot in portrait mode.

After picking screenshots, the image manipulation process is entirely automated. The only option you'll have to confirm at the end is whether you want to properly scale iPhone and iPad device frames. If you're dealing with different devices in the same image, choose Scale iPhone and iPad from the menu and Workflow will take care of resizing the 6s Plus template and aligning both devices toward the bottom edge. For images of the same device type (or if you don't care about scaling), choose the Finish option and the workflow will combine devices without scaling or aligning them.²

Also automated with my workflow.

Behind the scenes, this is possibly one of the most complex workflows I've built; in practice, though, I only have to choose some screenshots and see if I want to scale iPhone images if they're next to an iPad. Thanks to the Overlay Image action, this workflow is going to save me a lot of time I would have spent assembling hero images manually, and it's one more trick in my arsenal of screenshot workflows for image automation.

Converting HTML to Markdown

The other task that I used to run in Pythonista with a script was converting rich text and HTML back to Markdown. I did this to ensure that webpages I linked to on MacStories (where I publish text as Markdown) would keep the formatting of the original source, which is lost if you copy text manually (or with most share extensions) from Safari webpages.

Workflow 1.4.4 includes a simple action called Make Markdown from Rich Text that is comparable to html2text. You can pass webpage selections to the action, and you'll end up with a Markdown version of the same text to use somewhere else. For anyone who uses Workflow to complement their iOS blogging setups, this is a must-have.

I put together a sample workflow to demonstrate how easy it is to generate Markdown from selections in Safari. Select some content on a webpage – you can select both images and media – bring up the share sheet, and run the workflow. After a second, you'll have a Markdown version of the content you selected into your system clipboard, ready to be pasted in another app. Under the hood, Workflow uses the also-new 'Get Details of Safari Web Page' action³ to extract the page selection parameter from the input variable, feeding it to Make Markdown from Rich Text.

You can download the workflow here.

Workflow 1.4.4

There are more actions worth noting in this update. You can now unzip files in Workflow without having to use a separate file manager; you can use 'Get Device Details' to easily see whether a workflow is running on an iPhone or iPad (and take different routes if so); you can even add frames to GIFs and post GIFs to Tumblr.

On each release, Workflow adds features that allow me to work faster and automate as much as I can so I can focus on more important and fun aspects of my job. Workflow 1.4.4 has some great improvements for image processing and Markdown, and it's available now on the App Store.

With an update released today, Google has brought support for Live Photos to their Google Photos app for iOS, also adding Split View for iPad Pro users (a feature that is still surprisingly absent from the company's suite of productivity apps).

Live Photos integration works as expected: on an iPhone 6s, you can press on a photo inside the app to watch its Live portion. Google advertises this ability with an indicator in the top right corner. Unfortunately, you can't deep press on a photo from the main grid view – doing so will bring up the traditional long-tap menu to select photos.

After uploading a few hundred Live Photos to the service, I opened the Google Photos website on my MacBook Air and noticed that Google hasn't extended the integration to the web yet – you can't click & hold on the desktop to view Live Photos in your web browser.¹ However, if you download a Live Photo from Google Photos on the web, you'll end up with a .zip file containing the photo and a separate .mov file for the video inside the photo. Hopefully, Google will roll out proper Live Photo previews on the web soon.

Finally, Google boasts improved navigation in today's update so "you can spend less time flipping hamburger menus". I've seen this type of change in a bunch of apps lately, and it's funny how many are going back to the original tab bar-based design that is the platform's standard. Everything old is new again, I guess.

The post On Tech Leadership appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog.

I’ve written a piece over on NewCo that I wanted to also post it here. See below…

If your business focus is in technology or the Internet, as mine has been for nearly three decades, it’s quite possible you’ve never heard of the GLOBE Series, a global conference dedicated to sustainability in business. Until I was invited to participate this year, due in large part to NewCo’s core mission, I certainly hadn’t. What I saw opened my eyes and left me pondering the role of tech in the future of our planet.

The longest-running event dedicated to global environment and business, GLOBE draws more than 9,000 delegates to Vancouver from more than 50 countries around the world. There’s no shortage of government ministers, nonprofit leaders, and sustainability officers from huge companies like Nestlé, Lowe’s, and Citi. But if you peruse the speaker and sponsor lists, it’d be fair to conclude that sustainability simply isn’t a core issue for technology companies. They’re pretty much no-shows.

You’d be wrong, of course  – Google, for example, is the largest purchaser of renewable energy on the planet, and has been carbon neutral for nearly a decade. So why aren’t Larry Page or Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg keynoting GLOBE?

Events like GLOBE, which according to its organizers is growing so fast they plan to double the number of conferences starting next year, are a natural outgrowth of our business ecosystem’s need to address complex social issues like resource stewardship and climate change. If you’re Nestlé, for example, you need a platform to engage with all constituents in core markets (Nestlé is the world’s largest producer of bottled water). But if you’re Google or Facebook? Your products are digital and ephemeral in nature ;  your environmental impact is negligible in comparison to other industries. Facebookcompares the impact of its average user’s carbon footprint to that of “three bananas.”

Multiply that by billions, however, and you realize it takes a lot of bananas to spin all those servers (the Internet consumes the energy of a major nation-state). You wouldn’t know it from wandering the halls at GLOBE, but the biggest tech companies arecommitted leaders in green energy and have a strong story to tell. These same companies also leading the way in doing well by doing good. It’s built into the mission-driven ethos of nearly all leading tech companies.

Even if sometimes those young companies’ efforts seem self-serving or tone-deaf, their fresh, purpose-driven approach to business should inform our most urgent social issue: how we retool our economic engines toward sustainability. It’s not enough that Google is carbon-neutral, or that Amazon has committed to using 100% renewable energy. It’s time for our tech leaders to take the global stage and start to engage with the rest of the business world. The world needs their vision and their influence – before it’s too late.

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The post On Tech Leadership appeared first on John Battelle's Search Blog.

I love me some Szechuan, and surprisingly, so do a lot of others because Szechuan places have become all the rage lately. The Hedonists recently headed back to Chuan’s to check out its spicy Szechuan fare a year+ after opening — this time with wine!

Read all the details here.

 

In 2014 Senator Ted Cruz attempted, by use of a filibuster, to prevent Congress from raising the debt ceiling. Had he been successful, the United States would have defaulted on its debt, with unknown — but likely extremely dire — consequences.

Cruz — throughout his Senatorial career and through this campaign — has often spoken of returning America to the rule of the Constitution.

But there’s the matter of the 14th Amendment. From Section 4:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

This was ratified after the Civil War, hence the “suppressing insurrection or rebellion” part. But the gist remains: the validity of the public debt shall not be questioned.

If the only way to follow the Constitution is for the President to ask Congress to raise the debt ceiling, would President Cruz do so?

(Historical note: the debt ceiling was raised 17 times during President Reagan’s time in office. It’s not a new thing.)

Once a month, web developers from across Mozilla get together to talk about the work that we’ve shipped, share the libraries we’re working on, meet new folks, and talk about whatever else is on our minds. It’s the Webdev Extravaganza! The meeting is open to the public; you should stop by!

You can check out the wiki page that we use to organize the meeting, or view a recording of the meeting in Air Mozilla. Or just read on for a summary!

Shipping Celebration

The shipping celebration is for anything we finished and deployed in the past month, whether it be a brand new site, an upgrade to an existing one, or even a release of a library.

Peep 3.1.1

First up was ErikRose with news of a new release of Peep. The new version fixes the peep port command so that it correctly emits URL-based requirements.

Erik also wants to remind everyone to drop Peep and upgrade to Pip 8.

SHIELD Recipe Server

Next up was mythmon, who talked about the Recipe Server, a system to help Firefox respond to user issues and test new features quickly and easily. The development server for the service is now live, and is deployed to AWS using Docker and gunicorn.

Go Faster System Addon Update

Next we heard from laura who shared the news that the first Go Faster system addon update shipped! System addons are addons that come bundled with Firefox, but are updated outside of the normal 6-8 week release process. They enable us to try new features out and respond to user feedback quicker than before.

Roundtable

The Roundtable is the home for discussions that don’t fit anywhere else.

Debugging Python with gdb

ErikRose next talked about how he dealt with a segfault in DXR‘s indexing job. The end result of his trial is a description of how to debug Python stack frames using gdb on Ubuntu Trusty.

Conditional Requirements in Python are Bad

Erik also shared a story about conditional requirements in Python. Because Python uses executable Python files for describing the requirements for packages, some projects change their requirements list based on the environment. For example, some projects detect whether they’re running in Python 2.6 or 2.7 and include libraries that implement features that may be missing in Python 2.6.

The problem is that pip caches wheels after evaluating setup.py files, meaning that a cached package built for Python 2.6 may be used when installing in Python 2.7. The solution is to use a feature called environment markers that allows packages to specify requirements against the execution environment that they’re installed to. That way package tooling can check these conditions and avoid using cached packages that aren’t appropriate for the current environment.

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If you’re interested in web development at Mozilla, or want to attend next month’s Extravaganza, subscribe to the dev-webdev@lists.mozilla.org mailing list to be notified of the next meeting, and maybe send a message introducing yourself. We’d love to meet you!

See you next month!

There is often some bizarre connection to adjacent items in my RSS news reader or Twitter stream. The following three stories all appeared about the same time in my RSS feed. They seem related. But none reference the other, so I guess they are just coincidence. However, as any New York Times reporter knows when you see three items that mention “civil war” the same day, it’s enough to justify a trend story. However, I looked at NYTimes.com when I saw these items earlier today and saw nothing referencing a mutiny, civil war or Bin Laden warnings.

NPR | Osama Bin Laden Warned Of Civil War Between Jihadi Groups
Newsweek.com | Video Shows Dozens of Fighters “Deserting” ISIS in Syria
Jerusalem Post | ISIS gunmen stage mutiny, kill local commander in de facto capital

Here is NPR’s 4-minute story about the predictions of  civil war among competiting groups of jihadists found in Bin Laden’s compound during the raid by the Navy Seals:

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Former Mayor Bloomberg says he won’t run an independent race for President because if could potentially help Trump.

Quote:

“(Trump) has run the most divisive and demagogic presidential campaign I can remember, preying on people’s prejudices and fears. Abraham Lincoln, the father of the Republican Party, appealed to our ‘better angels.’ Trump appeals to our worst impulses.”

Speaking of excoriating Trump, this quote today in an essay by Jonathan Chait on the New York Magazine’s website is near poetic:

“Whether or not Donald Trump the human being is intelligent, there’s no question that ‘Donald Trump,’ presidential candidate, is not. His entire campaign operateswell below the level of rational thought — it’s all boasting, absurd promises, repetitive sloganeering, and abuse. Just as email scammers intentionally salt their messages with typos in order to weed out anyone educated enough to see through their swindle, allowing them to focus on the most gullible, Trump seems to consciously repel anyone possessed of a brain.”

Dense urban cities need not only mass, but also rapid transportation options to get people from their beloved car onto “public” transit systems. Buses do not cut it in many cases as they are often crowded, too hot or too cold, stop frequently and are often far slower than a car. The only advantage they offer a car user is price, and that is not good enough for many. Time is money, and if your time is valuable people opt out of public transit, especially if not rapid.

Most cities though are cash constrained. As such, to build a fast system one has basically three options:

1. take away an existing lane for a dedicated bus lane
2. go underground
3. go above ground

The latter option is not so common, with Vancouver’s Skytrain system, Seattle’s monorail or Wuppertal’s Suspension Railway (Schwebebahn) being an exception rather than the norm.

But here is a new, very fast, green, quiet and very cost-effective idea, built right now on test tracks in Israel.

Skytran uses pods that can be programmed to go to the destination without stopping – as such it eliminates the frustrating 28 stops on a bus, subway or skytrain. It is lightweight as the pods are lightweight and thus, the vertical and horizontal infrastructure is lightweight. It could presumably even be hung off Lionsgate Bridge or Second Narrows ridge to the North Shore. Trains have a few disadvantages: they are very heavy. As such the infrastructure has to be very heavy if above the ground. A train is also quite expensive and as such it cannot go very frequent unless it is very high volume. A subway tunnel is extremely expensive, and creates massive disruption during construction. Trains are also often quite noisy.

A possible alternative solution, based on magnetic levation technology, is using lightweight pods that can be added or removed like a gondola or a chairlift, depending on capacity requirements. It doesn’t stop at every station, only at your target destination. Top speed can be over 200 km/h km/h. It is electric, green, fast and very quiet. Costs to install and operate are a fraction of a subway (5-10% according to the manufacturer but of course that has to be verified in real world field trials). A summary of the benefits is here.

There is a good one minute video here and more info here on their corporate website or at their facebook page.

I can easily envision this in lieu of the $3B+ Broadway subway, along clogged Marine Drive in W-Van and N-Van, and as such as a bi-directional North Shore loop through downtown and E-Van and Burnaby, and of course in lieu of the Surrey-Langley LRT.

Check it out. No more waiting for the right bus or train, quiet, green, no stops to your destination, super fast. Is this the future for Vancouver, or what ?

What are the (unadvertised) drawbacks ?

…plus some pink.

I found two translations by accident. I can’t tell if they are perfect translations but I am thankful nonetheless.

• Russian
• Chinese

(Many people mentioned The Wrong Abstraction, and it is worth mentioning here too.)

Vancouver and other dense cities often bemoan the fact that they do not have the revenue tools for public transit. They complain to the federal and provincial governments and pretend they have no money.

Whiners, all.

Of course they have plenty of tools, but do not like to use them for fear of voter backlash. The biggest unused tool is  parking revenue in residential streets.

To me, offloading your parking requirements is like squatting. You demand free space, paid for by someone else. You occupy public property, for free.

Politicians love free stuff. Vote for me, and I give you free stuff. As such the squatter and the squattee, i.e. the authority that allows squatting are equally guilty.

Here are a few shots, near UBC along Marine Drive, along 16th Ave, along Blanca (that looks like a RV storage site) and in Point Grey to show how modern squatting in the car-era looks like. UBC exports their parking requirements onto 16th Ave or Marine Drive, for free. $4M house owners in Point Grey convert the garage into a rental property or exercise room, and park their cars on the street, for free. Why not allow tenting there, for free, too ? It is the same thing !

If Vancouver, which has 200,000+ cars in the city, charged a $100/month fee for the right to park anywhere, or perhaps $250/month for a dedicated spot this would not only generate about $250 -300,000,000 in annual revenue but also would eliminate many cars. Add other cities in MetroVan at perhaps 50% of this figure and you’d get the required annual $750M the Transit Referendum was asking for. It wouldn’t even need provincial approval or a referendum and it would be truly “green” and sustainable. It would achieve exactly what we want: a more walkable city, less cars, and pay as you go (or shall I say pay as you don’t go ?)

Since our enlightened mayors decided not to do that common-sense approach I – and apparently a vast number of residents – decided to vote against the car-neutral PST tax increase. We need a carrot and a stick to eliminate cars in our cities. The carrot is better and faster transit options which costs money. We all understand that. The stick is higher car use fees for its two states: driving and parking. More on road tolls later or elsewhere. But the timid politicians decided not to lead, but to ask others to subsidize free parking. They allowed squatting. Not a great policy tool to change behavior.

 

Cities are our rule now, anything else the exception. I’m biking most workdays, on concrete over the ocean into the stone heart of a small big city, getting ten dozen channels of nonstop urban input and every day I wonder where we’re all going. The future is distributed unevenly and cities concentrate the unevenness.

That building’s in the West End, a super-dense part of a pretty-dense city. As you can see, it’s not all pretty; the upscale condo developers, fueled (the story goes) by overseas capital, circle these towers like vultures, looking for a chance to evict retirees and immigrants and singles to build anew. What replaces this will be prettier and slenderer and much, much more expensive.

What Rodney King asked: “Can’t we all just get along?” And by “Get along” I mean “Not let Late Capitalism inexorably grind down the luckless many who surround the small bright cadre of Creatives and Financials and Managers who’ll be living in the shimmering tower that replaces that grubby pile of West-End stories.”

Vancouver’s embedded in Nature and generally does a decent job of promoting internal natural eruptions, and yeah, I more often run pictures of those than these. But I’m less able these days to look away from the hand-and-machine-mades occupying most of my visual field most of my time. Some explode with unintentional beauty.

Cities are our best hope, to concentrate us, get us off the highway, and leave space for the planet to breathe. To get enough people together to have the conversations that lead to action, and to co-locate care-givers with care-needers, artists with patrons, police with thieves.

I can’t see living outside one of these. Actually I’m optimistic that we can save ourselves from ourselves, at least partly. And if we do it’ll start downtown.

There's the misconception that the purpose of a compiler is to generate the fastest possible code. Really, it's to generate working code--going from a source language to something that actually runs and gives results. That's not a trivial task, mapping any JavaScript or Ruby or C++ program to machine code, and in a reliable manner.

That word any cannot be emphasized enough. If you take an existing program and disassemble the generated code, then it's easy to think "It could have been optimized like this and like that," but it's not a compiler designed for your program only. It has to work for all programs written by all these different people working on entirely different problems.

For the compiler author, the pressure to make the resultant programs run faster is easy to succumb to. There are moments, looking at the compiled output of test programs, where if only some assumptions could be made, then some of these instructions could be removed. Those assumptions, as assumptions tend to be, may look correct in a specific case, but don't generalize.

To give a concrete example, it may be obvious that an object could be allocated on the stack instead of the heap. To make that work in the general case, though, you need to verify that the pointer to the object isn't saved anywhere--like inside another object--so it outlives the data on the stack. You can trace through the current routine looking for pointer stores. You can trace down into local functions called from the current routine. There may be cases where the store happens in one branch of a conditional, but not the other. As soon as that pointer is passed into a function outside of the current module, then all bets are off. You can't tell what's happening, and have to assume the pointer is saved somewhere. If you get any of this wrong, even in an edge case, the user is presented with non-working code for a valid program, and the compiler writer has failed at his or her one task.

So it goes: there are continual, tantalizing cases for optimization (like the escape analysis example above), many reliant on a handful of hard to prove, or tempting to overlook, restrictions. And the only right thing to do is ignore most of them.

The straightforward "every program all the time" compiler is likely within 2-3x of the fully optimized version (for most things), and that's not a bad place to be. A few easy improvements close the gap. A few slightly tricky but still safe methods make up a little more. But the remainder, even if there's the potential for 50% faster performance, flat out isn't worth it. Anything that ventures into "well, maybe not 100% reliable..." territory is madness.

I've seen arguments that some people desperately need every last bit of performance, and even a few cycles inside a loop is the difference between a viable product and failure. Assuming that's true, then they should be crafting assembly code by hand, or they should be writing a custom code generator with domain-specific knowledge built-in. Trying to have a compiler that's stable and reliable and also meets the needs of these few people with extreme, possibly misguided, performance needs is a mistake.

(If you liked this, you might enjoy A Forgotten Principle of Compiler Design.)

Will Richardson, Medium, Mar 11, 2016

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What Will Richardson means, of course, is that instead of constantly focusing on teachers, we should invest in learners. "The vast majority of “innovation” I’ve seen in my visits to schools around the world doesn’t amount to much change at all in the area where we need it most: using those new methods, ideas, or products to shift agency for learning to the learner." He cites author Seymour Sarason: "the goal is not to force kids to abandon their passions and interests for our curriculum when they come to school, which is what we currently do... we must start with their questions and curiosities, and bring our world to them." Too true.

[Link] [Comment]

“You are kind of the mini-CEO – with all of the responsibility…but without any of the authority.”

-Josh Elman – Partner at Greylock, former Product Manager at Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn

Any “soft” skills or “hard” skills you need as a Product Manager all boil down to one core skill: Empathy.

I worked for 4 months with a fellow Product Manager before ever realizing he used to be a developer. He never mentioned anything technical, at all! What he did do was build by far the best relationships of trust with engineers that I have seen. He “got” them. In return, they respected him, gave him slack, and always put their all into the work they did with him.

“Software is a team sport”

I have been the least technical person on a very technical team and the most technical person on a fairly non-technical team. It all depends on how you work with your teammates’ skills.

Being technical can have its pitfalls:

“When you are an engineer going into product [management] and your engineer says to you, ‘Oh, that’s really hard to do.’ Your first instinct is, ‘Oh? Not for me…I could do that in an afternoon.’ I had to get over that really fast. That is not a productive outcome. Software is a team sport.”

Adam Nash – CEO of Wealthfront and a former Product Manager and Engineer

Now that the soft stuff is out of the way, let’s get down to it.

As always, a good Product person brings it back to outcomes, and Lulu Cheng – Product Manager at Pinterest – lists the goals to consider when deciding which technical skills a PM should focus on:

1. “Trace a user issue (or set of issues) back to the underlying problem.”
2. “Estimate how long it will take to build A vs. B.”
3. “Anticipate implementation challenges with a particular proposal.”
4. “Brainstorm potential solutions to technical problems.”
5. “Identify opportunities that arise from new technologies.”

The Top 5 Technical Skills Every Product Manager Needs to Know:

1. Data Collection, Extraction and Analysis

Why:
1. You need to understand what your users are doing to make good product decisions.
2. If you do not understand how your data is collected, you cannot determine its integrity.

What to learn:
SQL
I hear this touted as a “must-have”- though I have worked with some great PMs who don’t know SQL, they end up asking the SQL-literate for data.

How to learn it:
I have personally used the interactive tutorials at W3Schools, and Codecademy’s Learn SQL and SQL: Analyzing Business Metrics interactive courses.
After that, ask your engineer to set you up with read-only SQL access to try product questions.

Feeling ambitious?
Try creating automated query scripts and tasks in Python.

3rd-Party Analytics Tools
(Mixpanel, Amplitude, Looker, Tableau, Google Analytics, etc.)

There are two key areas every Product Manager should understand regarding analytics tools:

1. Understand how each of these tools can help you answer product questions.
2. Understand how the underlying tracking is done and how it is interpreted.

As my fellow Product Manager at HourlyNerd, David Connolly, used to quip: “I think we should run an analysis on how much of our analytics we actually trust.”

Amplitude funnel tracking alone is nice…

…but Amplitude funnel tracking integrated with an Optimizely A/B test can really deliver an actionable insight! You should know why and how this is done.

How to learn it:
Dive into documentation. There are usually simplified tutorials and videos walking you through the main parts, but peek into actual code implementation. Also, ask Support and Sales.

2. Excel (Yes. Really.)

Why:
You can get a lot out of SQL and Analytics Dashboards, but a good Pivot Table and even some VBA could make data a lot more flexible, visual, and easier to interpret.

What to learn:
A. Pivot Tables
Pivot tables are easy to learn and help manipulate complicated data sets. They essentially pump out a dynamic filterable table or chart.

How to learn it:
Honestly, Youtube videos and Microsoft’s Support Site.
You can even combine your skills and learn how to Create a Pivot Table Using SQL

B. VBA
VBA is the coding language for Excel. It lets you build “Macros” to automate anything in Excel. Pull online data, automate data matching, etc. Helps you with “Don’t repeat yourself.”

How to learn it: 
StackOverflow for specific use cases (like matching data from different columns in different workbooks) and Microsoft’s Support Site for specific functions.

3 . Experimentation (A/B Testing)

Why:
Product intuition is great, but actually testing ideas with users is essential. Get buy-in or setup experimentation infrastructure for non-technical iteration on products.

What to learn:
Need a non-developer solution?

• Unbounce (landing pages – no development needed).
• Optimizely (Change copy/design on your own site without pushing code – can start with a single code snippet).
  

Need an internal A/B test?

• Determine how to design an experiment and hypothesis.
• Discuss with your developers what to track in your DB  and how to divide up your samples.

How to learn it:
First: What is A/B, Split, and Multivariate testing?
Then: What is statistical significance (basics)?
(Hint: Use Optimizely’s A/B test sample size calculator)
Finally: How to track an A/B test’s effect on your bottom line using your new Analytics and A/B testing skills

“How can I A/B test if I haven’t built the new feature yet?”

That brings us to #4…

4. Interactive Prototyping

Why:
Engineering time is too valuable to be wasted on iterations of products that have not been validated at all.

What to learn:
A. Non-technical:
There are plenty of interactive prototyping tools out there for the non-technical person.
Invision lets you upload mockups from design to make a clickable interactive prototype.
Proto.io lets you create interactive mobile app prototypes with drag and drop components.

UserTesting and similar sites let you send in these prototypes and get videos of users answering questions about the site. You should run interviews yourself, too, of course.

B. Technical:
That brings us to #5…

5. Learn *about* Code

“You need to understand what your engineers are saying, even if you have no opinion on the results of the conversations.”

Why:
This is hotly contested, but in the end, the necessity for this really depends on two things:

1. “What does your team value?”

Remember: Not everyone on a team needs to have the same skills. You can help each other.

You will want to learn enough to communicate technical details to non-technical stakeholders.

2. “What do your users value?”

Remember: As a Product Manager, you are the voice of the user.

Are your users technical? Some technical understanding is likely necessary to “get” your users.

What to learn:
HTML, Javascript

Nowadays, these tools are basic. This simplifies building prototypes, implementing 3rd party tools, or tweaking client-side A/B tests.

How to learn?
Countless courses are available online, but I suggest just starting with W3Schools and Codecademy or going to a weekend bootcamp.

Your Company’s Technology Stack

Understand what languages, frameworks, and architecture your company uses and why.

As Cliff Giley from The Clever PM puts it:

“…Microsoft C#?  …Java?  …relational…or non-relational databases?  Do you know the difference…?  A large part of your job as a PM consists of talking with engineers and discussing and assessing options to solve problems – you need to understand what they’re saying, even if you have no opinion on the results of the conversations.”

How to learn:
Ask an engineer about the stack and why it was used. Also, try to build a small app in your stack with one of the countless MOOCs or bootcamps to get a basic feel for what your team uses.

Closing Thoughts
If you learn to deal with data from collection to presentation, learn how to experiment, learn how to demonstrate ideas through a prototype, and learn how to speak your developers’ language, you will become a more valuable PM to all of your teams, and – most importantly – to your users.

Remember: “Software is a team sport.”

 

The post The Top 5 Technical Skills Every Product Manager Should Know appeared first on UserVoice Blog.

Product innovations can blow up. They can blow up big, or they can blow up bad. Sometimes it is hard to tell which is which in the end –  sort of like every time Kanye West tweets something.

Unlike Kanye’s publicist, who just has to hold their breath with every keystroke, Product Managers can predict and prevent the bad kind of blow up by listening to the “Voice of the Customer” (or “VoC” for short.)

In my last post on “How to Communicate Product Changes to Your Users,” I called out a couple of big cases of user backlash, including Spotify and Couchsurfing. I also called out the would-be backlashes that were turned into big wins by Airbnb and Tinder. The latter two listened to and monitored their community of users closely, really understanding what their users thought and felt about the product’s evolution. The former either underestimated their users or undervalued them. This time, I will run down what a Product Manager could learn from three very big blow-ups that could have been prevented by leveraging a VoC program that prioritizes listening.

What is Voice of Customer?

Traditionally, VoC is customer feedback usually gathered through a Voice of the Customer Survey, where customers provided feedback about their experiences with and expectations for a product or service.

Modern VoC is much more than that. Yes, surveys have moved from traditional focus groups, paper and pen to integrated widgets right in your app with forum features that I hear are just fantastic, but your user “voice” comes from many outposts: Engaging in forums (in-person and online), listening to feedback during beta tests, observing actual user behavior, running social media tracking and sentiment analysis, staying close to customer support & success to track and collect insights, running user tests…  *takes a breath*…  Now, that is a lot, but a holistic VoC program will not only prevent terrible product blow-ups that could trigger your company’s downfall, it can turn those launches into big wins.

Despite the push toward VoC, companies keep making the same mistake: they don’t listen enough to their users, or they listen to the wrong things. In light of the recent user backlash over big changes to popular multiplayer game Clash of Clans, I thought I would do a post-mortem on some of the biggest.

For each, we will look at what happened, the product manager’s perspective, and how a VoC Program could have helped.

Product Blow-Ups That a VoC Program Could Have Prevented

Uber’s Surge Pricing – New Year’s Eve & Hurricane Sandy

Uber – oddly also a bit like Kanye – seems to not only cultivate negative publicity, but often seems to come out stronger after each backlash. One of the first of these came during New Year’s Eve 2012, quickly followed by Hurricane Sandy.

What Happened?

In 2010/11, Uber introduced a feature that would increase the price of a trip during times when demand for trips would outstrip supply. The company called this “Surge Pricing” and labeled it as a means to encourage more drivers into surge areas to meet demand. In 2011, before a price surge, Uber would send a mass email to users, make a blog post, then send a notification through the app if surge pricing was in effect.

On NYE 2012, however, the demand was so heavy in several areas that some complaining users stated they paid over $100 for a 1.5 mile ride. Even if they had seen the notifications, they still used the app. Others did not see it or notice it for technical or other reasons, and most underestimated how much it would cost. Uber claimed only 97 complaints were logged on the night, but it caused a social media and PR backlash, with plenty of word of mouth about Uber, for better or worse.

Sample tweets from that night:

Wow… $135 to go 12 blocks on @uber last night. 3.75x surge pricing alert needs to have flashing red light on it! Really guys? @uber_sf

— Dan Whaley (@dwhly) January 1, 2012

While I’m glad I’m home safely, the $107 charge for my @Uber to drive 1.5 miles last night seems insanely excessive.

— Aubrey Sabala (@Aubs) January 1, 2012

Later that year, during Hurricane Sandy, this happened again, but Uber actually switched off Surge Pricing on the user side during the backlash and absorbed the extra pay to the drivers, costing an estimated $100,000 on the day, as well as even more negative publicity.

Some users reportedly do not necessarily trust Uber’s motives in how it uses surge pricing now, even if they understand the need it is supposed to be filling.

Product Perspective

Let’s take on the hypothetical perspective of a Product Manager at Uber tasked with considering Surge Pricing back before this all started. It probably made a lot of sense. Dynamic pricing in travel has been around for a long time to balance supply and demand. With all of the benefits Uber provides, the main pain point that Uber has successfully addressed is the need for an accessible ride within minutes, even during peak traffic – a need which was not, in the user’s view, being reliably filled by cab companies. Surge Pricing helps satisfy that customer need.

We know that our users are willing to pay the surge amount on a busy night like New Year’s Eve to get home safe. We know that 3.7x Surge Pricing will attract more drivers onto the road to meet that demand. But if we were talking to a handful of users or testing behavior and response in a handful of small markets, our otherwise all-star PM work might still miss the risk for such a large backlash, even one that looks obvious with 20/20 hindsight.

How a VoC Program Could Have Helped

The best evidence of the benefits of a VoC program is a blog post by one of Uber’s devoted users who was shocked by that NYE Surge Pricing. Their recommended redesign mockup of how Uber’s Surge Pricing notification UX should work seems eerily close to what Uber actually changed to mitigate their issues.

The user suggested:

1. The Surge multiplier become much more prominent than before with less distraction.
2. The explanations are more to the point and less cluttered.
3. The user takes an action that clearly confirms that they understand the pricing.
4. (Not on the mockup) The blog also mentioned the user should see the final pricing, not just the multiplier – which you can see in the new implemented design on a per-mile basis along with a minimum fare.

These are all minor nuances that a closer touch with the users could have uncovered, avoiding one of many very large and costly backlashes.

User’s Suggested Redesign:

Uber’s Eventual Redesign:

 

If Uber had engaged with users beforehand using a more thorough, user-focused VoC program, they would have identified that even users who understood the basic reasoning behind Surge Pricing would experience emotional triggers, surprise, and potentially even feelings of mistrust at unexpectedly high fares in their moment of need.

2. JC Penney’s No-More-Sales Snafu

 

What Happened?

Back in 2011, JC Penney famously hired the creator of the famous Apple Store experience, Ron Johnson, as their CEO. Mr. Johnson set out to end the “fake prices” set out by constant markdowns, essentially ending the term “Sale” at the store. It sounded revolutionary, but it ended up being a large case of company-customer disconnect.

JC Penney spoke boldly about the plan, had a sputtering start in advertising the new idea in-store (mainly just not having “On Sale” signs), and eventually lost over half a billion dollars in the 4th quarter of 2012. Ron Johnson and the JC Penny President were both ousted. Mr. Johnson only lasted 17 months as CEO.

A Product Manager’s Perspective

If a Product Manager can learn just one thing from Ron Johnson’s stumble at JC Penney, it is this:

What worked for your last product will NOT necessarily work for your next one.
There is no silver bullet other than understanding your users.

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What worked for your last product will NOT necessarily work for your next one.
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Mr. Johnson was brought in from Apple with a mission to deliver what he had at Apple in the JC Penney stores. As a PM, you know how much internal selling you have to do to get things done, with both compromise and improvement as a result. Mr. Johnson and his team did a lot to sell a change in brand to the press and to the internal corporation itself, but it forgot to really check in with its customers.

How a VoC Program Could Have Helped

JC Penney was underperforming its category leading up to Mr. Johnson’s appointment, and in desperation, didn’t take the time to truly engage with customers and identify nuances that could make its product reboot a failure.  (This is also a good lesson on why doing a “product pre-mortem” is key. We’ll be writing more on that in the coming weeks.) The outcome was a big risk and a big tank.

If the company had invested even a little more in understanding the consumer, they would have listened to customers by testing questions about their consumers’ perception of sales and “luxury brands” using traditional VoC methods such as consumer surveys, customer interviews and focus groups, and even collecting consumer feedback at the point of sale verbally or with devices.

What they ended up doing by jumping right in is testing a different, riskier question: “Is JC Penney  an aspirational brand *right now?*” They got their answer.

Understanding your users may not always give you detailed solutions, but they will certainly help you ask the right questions.

3. Netflix’s Price-Hike

2011 & 2012 were rough years for product backlash, it seems. Industry-darling Netflix could not miss out.

What Happened?

In 2011, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings planned to split the $10 per month subscription, which included DVD rentals and unlimited on-demand video streaming, into a $7.99 on-demand streaming subscription and a $7.99 DVD subscription. The company predicted some backlash at first, but assumed it would cool.

The company eventually lost 800,000 subscribers and 77% of its stock valuation in 4 months, as well as distribution rights to Disney and Sony Pictures films. You read correctly – nearly a million subscribers and three quarters of its market cap gone.

Several internal sources at Netflix allegedly mentioned that communication was low at every level. They suggested that there was not a lot of discussion around the decision to split and spin off the DVD business that had been Netflix’s cash cow for a decade.

Even after the initial announcement created backlash from subscribers, the DVD spin-off business was launched and taken down after only 3 weeks.

Netflix has obviously recovered and maintained Reed’s goal of having the most streaming content and subscribers, and you can still rent DVDs today (Baby Boomers and Gen Xers would not just make a jump like DVD to streaming overnight), but this could have all gone down far more smoothly.

A Product Manager’s Perspective

Price adjustments, focusing on future growth, and sending old products to pasture are all part of a balancing act. In this case, Netflix’s decision to unbundle and increase prices to focus on the growing streaming market with an improved product was the correct strategy – only with poor execution. There is an ability to underestimate the time it will take for historical user behaviors to fall away. These often come with emotional ties as well. Netflix has since been able to keep the old while growing the new. If they had listened to users, perhaps they would have not ripped the band-aid off so harshly.

How a Voice of Customer Program Could Have Helped

In this case, the subscriber’s voice was heard everywhere in the company except in the C-suite. Reed Hastings had been praised by the press and shareholders and that sort of trust can create a bubble. This can create a stable vision, but can also lead to missteps like this one. Even the most steadfast product or company executive must have his or her pulse on the user, especially when affecting something so ingrained in their habits. A healthy VoC program would either put C-suite execs directly in front of customers or in front of a Product Manager who is a trusted voice of the customer in the organization. That trusted voice would be someone who shares VoC data from surveys, focus groups, etc., with the C-suite regularly before changes are made from on high.

Thankfully, Netflix seems to have learned its lesson: It’s 2014 price raise actually gained a positive response from customers and an up-tick (rather than crash) in its stock price.

Conclusion

We have learned that:

1. You cannot assume that your users will understand why a feature is needed.
2. Unengaged users may not always trust your motives even if you explain your changes.
3. Things that worked on your previous products will not necessarily translate to new products or users.
4. You should not get stuck in a bubble separating you from your users, just because of recent success or praise.

In the end, this all comes down to one thing: Listen to your users at all levels. More than just one-on-one. More than just from support complaints. Actively engage them. Ask for feedback on future products.

Of course, users can’t always predict their own habits. Occasionally, there will be ideas that users claim to loathe in theory that they may end up loving in practice. (For example, Facebook’s News Feed is now a core need-to-have feature among users, but created one of the major user backlashes in recent memory, with 100,000 of their then <10 million users joining a group condemning the feature when it was first launched.) In the end, though, a healthy VoC program can help you listen well and read signals before even seemingly positive changes blow up in your face.

The post 3 Company Blow-Ups that a Voice of Customer Program Could Have Prevented appeared first on UserVoice Blog.

In case you’ve missed it, we at UserVoice blog are currently *obsessed* with best practices for customer feedback – how to do it right, how to do it wrong, how to onboard your co-workers, etc., etc. In keeping with this theme, we decided to talk to experts and get their perspectives on how to optimize customer feedback. This post is the second of a handful of influencer interviews we’ll be sharing in the coming weeks.

Jeff Lash is the Service Director for the Product Management advisory service for Sirius Decisions. He is also the author of a well-rounded blog I and other product-happy folks read called “How to Be a Good Product Manager.” With that kind of title, you better believe he knows something about product management!

I reached out to Lash for some of his thoughts on how to best capture customer feedback. Here were my top three takeaways:

1. Be Proactive about Diversifying Your Customer Feedback Approach

Lash suggests that it’s important to reach people in a variety of different ways: “Some customers and users will be proactive about providing feedback — sending emails, communicating through sales or account management, or submitting suggestions through idea management portals, for example — but usually this is just the tip of the iceberg. Product managers need to remember that there are a lot people who will never actually provide feedback in this way, so they need to be proactive about identifying opportunities to understand customer needs, which usually includes techniques like one-on-one interviews and observational research.”

2. Don’t Let Daily Fire-Fighting Distract You From Customer Feedback

“At SiriusDecisions we ran a survey of product management leaders, and one of the questions we asked was about what skills the product managers on their teams most need to improve, and the top result was that ‘collecting product feedback and measuring product satisfaction.’

Some of this is because product managers are being pulled in so many different directions, which I have sympathy for, but at the same time, this is such a crucial part of making your product a success that you can’t let the daily fire-fighting or other internal responsibilities pull you away from understanding customer needs and collecting feedback.

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You can’t let the daily fire-fighting…pull you away from understanding customer needs…
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Sure, it might be quick and easy to just put together a survey, for example, but if that’s the only research you’re doing, the feedback you get may be biased and is likely only scratching the surface of what your customers are thinking. My colleague Rachel Young and I will be covering this in a presentation at the annual SiriusDecisions Summit in May — looking at the different ways that product managers and marketers can and should be understanding customer needs and collecting feedback.

3. Your “Voice of Customer” Program Must Go Beyond Features

“You can’t understand the voice of the customer without actually hearing the voice of the customer,” says Lash, suggesting that tech can’t and shouldn’t replace real conversation:

“Technology has allowed us to collect feedback from customers in a number of different ways, and do it more quickly and inexpensively than ever before, but that’s no substitute for actually talking or spending time with customers.

It’s also important to understand that “voice of customer” means many different things to different people. You may have someone in marketing or a customer experience function also looking at voice of customer, and often that’s looking at it from a much broader perspective which is important. Sometimes product managers look at things too narrowly — when they say “voice of customer” they really are mean “understand what new features we should add to the product,” but really the voice of the customer is going to including using the product but also things like onboarding, support, services, account management, and even billing and logistics.”

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“You can’t understand the VoC w/o actually hearing the voice of the customer.”
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The post Product Experts Weigh In: Jeff Lash on Quality Feedback and What “Voice of Customer” Really Means appeared first on UserVoice Blog.

Fewer boxes. More loops.

There are two important lessons I have learned as a PM that made me start thinking in loops and stop thinking in boxes:

1. No user touchpoint occurs in an isolated box.
   It is easy to get tunnel vision, focusing on one feature or KPI you are trying to drive this month. Asking “How can I get the user to use new feature X?” without understanding what they experienced before and after that point, or their expectations coming in. One of the best ways to zoom out and really improve the entirety of your user’s experience – including customer support interactions – is to develop a complete, multi-touchpoint customer feedback loop.
2. Product development should never be a black box.
   “If you build it, they will come” might be a nice Hollywood movie line, but it can be dangerous in a product development setting. A “Build-Measure-Learn” loop involving real conversations with users as you iterate is essential to improving everything from the tiniest feature to the whole customer experience.

 

“The fundamental activity of a [product team] is to turn ideas into products, measure how customers respond, and then learn whether to pivot or persevere. All successful [team] processes should be geared to accelerate that feedback loop.”
– Eric Ries, Author of ‘The Lean Startup’

 

This “loop beats box” mentality can really drive both how you think about collecting customer feedback in your organization, as well as how you make product decisions. If you set up a genuine, multi-touch closed feedback loop with your customers, your team can break out of silos and improve your product and user experience at a quicker and more productive pace.

This is all good in theory, but to have an automated, manageable, and thorough Closed-Loop Customer Feedback System requires some planning.

So, how do we do this?

Here is what we will cover:

1. First, we will look at what makes up a Closed Customer Feedback Loop.
2. Then, we will look at some less obvious benefits of closing the loop.
3. Last, we will look at some tools and techniques you can use as a Product Manager and throughout your organization to ensure customers are brought to the forefront.

 

1. What Is a Closed Customer Feedback Loop?

 

“If you’re not talking to customers a couple times [a day] at work, you are not doing a good job. I think that is true as a Product Manager.”
– Nickey Skarstad, Group Product Manager at Etsy

 

Typically, customer feedback is a one-way street. Get feedback. Make decisions. Rinse. Repeat. Feedback is collected in a survey, series of interviews, or maybe customer service tickets. It is then aggregated, analyzed, and reported. That is equivalent to taking all of your customers’ responses, putting them into a nice little box with a ribbon, then presenting them to your team.

Think about it. In what real world setting would that pass for real conversation? We saw in the 2014 UserVoice State of Product Management Survey that Sales and Executive teams dominate influence over product strategy. This happens despite Product Managers ranking actual users and Customer Support as far more valuable sources of product feedback. The best way to combat this imbalance is through closing the customer feedback loop.

A Closed Customer Feedback Loop, is a process of continued collection, reflection, and real conversation with users at multiple touchpoints in the customer lifecycle.

To close the feedback loop, you have to:

1. Listen to what your customers have to say
2. Address customer concerns promptly and properly
3. Talk with customers regularly
4. Track customers’ actual behavior
5. Understand where customers are coming from
6. Create new lines of communication
7. Solve underlying customer needs
8. Involve all teams in the conversation

On that last point, Nickey Skarstad, Group Product Manager at Etsy, shared a great tip during her talk at UserConf on using customer feedback to build better products:

“I actually encourage my team – everyone from product designers that I work with to the data analysts that are working on my team, as well as the engineers – to actually get into the prototype [feedback forum] and talk to people. My team has found it really rewarding because they are able to have real conversations with people.”

This level of conversation not only lets you (and your team) build better products for users, it can even affect how your users themselves behave with your product. Let us talk about how we can get there.

Make It Personal

Imagine you were in a long-term relationship. Every once in a while, your significant other gives you little bites of unsolicited feedback on your behavior here and there, maybe more and more frequently. A perceptive partner might pick up on this pattern and ask “Is something wrong?”, hear them out, then go back and think about that feedback moving forward.

Done. Finished. Everything is peachy. Right?

Not quite. Life is not so simple. Some issues can and should be addressed in real-time, and there are almost certainly nuances to their reactions. This does not mean picking apart every little detail about each other, but having ongoing conversations and open communication rather than just the occasional one-way feedback collection is more likely to build empathy and growth. You need to “get” your partner – and your users.

2. What Do We Get Out of Closing the Loop?

Better products. Better users. Fewer headaches. Stronger teams.

Let’s take a couple of case studies: Etsy, the creative seller marketplace,and Atlassian’s Confluence, an enterprise team management tool.

Etsy has a compelling method of collecting feedback before launching new features. They have a prototype section where their sellers can go in and actually toggle-on nearly-complete features to test them out and offer feedback in forum threads in that same section.

 

Even after features are being rolled out, Etsy users have a period in which  they can toggle the feature on or off when they like. Etsy’s team members not only engage and respond to users in the prototype feedback area, but they also look at the first few actions users take after they toggle off a new feature to look for patterns.

Confluence, on the other hand, uses a lighter version of prototyping in Keynote in addition to their fuller prototypes. They  have also used a live dashboard of users with photo avatars in their office that tracks individual metrics for that day. This way, they can start seeing patterns and really try to “get” their users. This can help put faces to personas, adding empathy to product conversations.

So, what are the rewards of all of this effort?

Better Products

“With great power comes great responsibility.” Or so say French Revolutionaries (and Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben).

When you make product changes, you can just as easily hurt your users as help them. Closing the feedback loop can ensure you are helping.

Etsy’s mix of prototyping, feedback conversations, and tracking actual user behavior ensures that they can address actual user needs. A tool might be  useful in theory for their sellers, but they will quickly validate this, either explicitly through feedback or implicitly by observing users who toggle the new feature off.

Etsy saw sellers disabling their new listing management feature before posting a listing, which was the opposite of what they were looking for. Fortunately, since they set up a channel for conversation they identified the reasons behind the behavior and could talk directly to the users who were exhibiting this behavior.

Sherif Mansour, Principal Product Manager at Atlassian responsible for Confluence, described how his team added a “Provide Feedback” button right in the Confluence app next to the new feature. This provided the most relevant feedback quickly, with over 900 submissions. Reducing friction for user feedback by avoiding forcing users to navigate to other pages or logins improved the amount and representation of feedback they received, as well. This led to better features, iterated quicker with less wasted development time. (Stop by this article on best practices for in-app feedback to learn more about how to do this well.)

Better Users

People do not like change. Users can often react in shock to major product changes or new features, even if they will be successful in the end. By allowing users to opt-in and toggle new features on or off, Etsy was able to avoid the “shock reactions” that typically drown out genuine user feedback. Not only does this provide much higher quality and actionable feedback, it primes the user base for changes and makes them happier and more invested members of the product community.

In the short-term, customers who are at risk of churning to competitors, downgrading, or lowering engagement can be turned around by a single positive real-time customer feedback or support experience.

In the long-term, every positive or negative interaction your customers have, whether it be with support, your product team, or the app experience itself, adds up over time. Improving the quality and frequency of these positive interactions and investments will only increase your customer’s engagement and reduce churn to competitors.

Fewer Headaches

Having closer feedback and communication with your users will avoid big headaches (like product change blow-ups), but will also avoid the build up of small bugs and poor experiences that users have over time.

Stronger Teams

Having everyone from support to sales to engineering to product all interacting and addressing users needs will provide everyone with context on the value they provide. This perspective will ensure each team member will make better decisions since they will be able to empathize with the customer on each part of the journey.

3. Tools and Techniques to Close the Customer Feedback Loop

There is a large toolkit out there right now for companies of all sizes.

Everyone from enterprises to startups can leverage scalable plug-and-play solutions that handle customer feedback collection, support, and product prioritization. Still, traditional market research is still useful in certain contexts. A good Product Manager should understand the full set of tools available and decide what they should prioritize.

Here is a list of some of the best traditional tools for closing the feedback loop:

1. Alert Systems
   From bug-ticketing tracking to in-app customer support ticketing, these systems can send automated alerts to staff and even auto-triage and route alerts to the appropriate managers. Using Alert Systems for aggregate analysis in addition to ad-hoc customer support will provide the most value.
2. Intelligent Knowledge-Bases
   The majority of top-class products now have automated knowledge bases that can answer user queries from a database of answers. There are tools out there to help. Having a feedback and follow-up system integrated in this knowledge base is the only way to ensure it is continuously improving. Be warned: Users will appreciate instant automated answers, but can quickly become annoyed if they get lost with no way to contact a human.
3. Case Management
   Assigning customer support cases to managers and ensuring that they are addressed with high quality support quickly is important. If you have an engaged customer community, as Airbnb has, this can be enhanced and scaled by engaging the community. Airbnb has queries first routed to incentivized community members – including fellow hosts & guests – to answer and even take action on tickets. If the ticket becomes complicated, the issue is escalated to a support manager. This both engages the community and helps scale quick responses across geographies and cultures.
4. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
   Calculated through a survey of customers after they have been served, the NPS is the % of satisfied customers minus the % of unsatisfied customers. Almost every company should track this metric as a general signal of health, but this should not be used as a substitute for more in-depth customer support and feedback analysis.
5. Surveys
   Customer surveys are important. Whether it be simple sentiment questions using emoticons, or in-depth open-ended surveys to collect action-oriented user concerns, a survey is a great way to understand your landscape of customers and their concerns. Surveys tend to be one-way, however, and high-quality respondents should always be engaged. Reach out to these respondents, ask follow-up questions, or invite them in for user interviews. Most importantly, always thank your users and make them know their voices were heard. (Airbnb, for example, often frames new product releases as being “highly requested by the community.”)
6. Community Forums
   Similar to the above, a community forum with quality community moderators can be a great tool to have continual engagement with users. Although forums, along with many collection tools, will be a self-selected group of users, they can provide quality feedback on-demand. Consider having a manageable, invite-only forum for your power users or users that fill a specific variety of customer profiles.
7. In-app Feedback Tools
   Collect feedback where it is most relevant. There are plug-and-play tools that make collecting customer feedback – and even responding to feedback right in-app – very easy, but even a simple button for “tell us what you think” next to a new feature can be valuable. Reduce friction for feedback: If a thumbs up or thumbs down is all you need, then just add those.

…and here are some more inventive feedback tools and techniques:

1. Beta/Prototype Feedback Collection
   Etsy’s Prototype Feedback “Lab” and “Google Labs” are good examples of full beta versions of features that can be tested out by users with a feedback system built-in. There are plug-and-play beta feedback collection tools, of course, and you should always supplement with actual user testing, interviews, customer support feedback, and tracking actual user behavior.
2. Tracking In-App Behavior
   Using funnel analytics tools like Amplitude or Localytics, heatmaps or videos of user click habits with plugins like Inspectlet, and even simple Google Analytics tracking can help you understand exactly what your users are doing – not just what they are telling you. After you start to see patterns, talk to your users to validate your hypotheses on why they are taking those actions.
3. User Testing
   Testing new products or features with users has been made pretty simple. You can now take a simple mockup, an interactive prototype, or a fully built feature and go to a site like UserTesting to get screen-capture videos of users that fit your customer profile using your site and answering questions.
4. User & Usability Interviews
   Nothing will substitute for talking directly to your customers. If it is a new product, find customers in your employee or friend network who fit the profile or hustle and find them through online searches, Craigslist, or databases and services. Let your users ramble, follow-up on questions, and if you are doing a usability test, let them react before asking them questions or stating what you are trying to build. Consider building a customer panel that you can go back to and rotate through when you need to test new concepts and features.
5. Shared-Team Customer Support
   The best way to get everybody on board is to have a program where everybody in the organization (or at least key people in each team), has to do customer support for a day. Some organizations even have all employees do customer support for one day at least once every month or two. Either way, this will give everyone perspective and empower them to make more empathetic decisions without having to learn about the user through the same product or support manager.

In Sum

In the end, give your customers more opportunities to provide feedback that will actually be answered. Be  active in speaking with customers daily. And finally, empower your teams to support your users at scale. This will all greatly improve your chances of building and growing a winning product, plain and simple.

 

The post How to Close the Customer Feedback Loop appeared first on UserVoice Blog.

“What tool should I learn? ” I hesitate to answer, because I use what works best for me, which isn't necessarily the best for someone else or the “best” overall. Nevertheless, here's my toolset. Read More

If you decided to stand with Microsoft by buying one of the company’s new Lumia devices, then your faith and patience is about to be rewarded. Facebook’s popular photo sharing app, Instagram, is now available on Windows 10 Mobile. The catch, though, is that what’s currently available on the Windows Store is a beta release.

According the Windows Central, the beta tag is well-deserved because there are a number of stability issues with this release. One particularly annoying issue is that the app is sometimes prone to crashing when the user attempts to capture or edit photos.

However, Instagram says these are known issues and is working on a fix. In addition, all of the app’s available features on iOS and Android made the jump to Windows 10 intact, including recent additions like the option to share photos in landscape or portrait, instead of the platform’s signature square format.

Despite the limited number of devices where Windows 10 is available, Microsoft’s universal app strategy appears to be working for the time being. The company is reportedly preparing to roll out its new mobile OS to older Windows Phone devices later this month.

More than six months after the release of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, Google Photos now supports iOS’s GIF-like Live Photos feature, the search giant announced today through Twitter.

After updating the app, iOS users can both view and back up any Live Photos they may have taken with their device.

Last week, Google also added more robust editing options to the app. When using the Photos desktop client, users can now crop their images using common preset aspect ratios like 16:9 and 4:3.

Since its release at I/O last year, Photos has been download more than 100-million times on Android, according to statistics from the Play Store.

One thing is clear about Samsung’s latest Galaxy flagship smartphones: 2016 is a year of iteration for the company.

At first glance, the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge look nearly identical to their predecessors, the S6 and S6 edge, but given the warm reception Samsung’s previous marquee devices received from both fans and critics, it’s difficult to fault the company for releasing what amounts to an act of impressive refinement.

Last year’s Galaxy marked a significant shift from the S5, moving the premium smartphone line away from the plastic build of the S4 and S5, to a Gorilla Glass 4 front and back, and a aluminum bezel. Samsung was onto something with the S6’s design, so it makes sense for the company to build on this direction with the S7.

With the S6/S6 edge, we saw Samsung take cues from Apple, honing in on improving specific aspects of its flagship smartphones, removing most of the bloat and gimmicks featured in the S4 and S5, two well-received smartphones hindered by TouchWiz, Samsung’s Android skin. With the S7/S7 edge, Samsung has maintained this strategy, improving specific aspects of the smartphone the company hopes its customers actually care about, specifically related to overall design, camera, battery and hardware.

Samsung Galaxy S7 specs

• Android 6.0 Marshmallow
• 5.1″ Quad HD Super AMOLED (2560 X 1440, 577ppi)
• 32GB (UFS 2.0) + microSD (up to 200GB)
• 4GB (LPDDR4)
• Exynos 8890 processor (Canada), Snapdragon 820 (US)
• Rear camera: Dual Pixel 12MP / 5MP, (F1.7)
• 3,000mAh non-removable battery
• IP68 Water & Dust Resistant / Wireless Charging
• 5MP front-facing camera f/1.7
• Accelerometer, Proximity, RGB Light, Geo-magnetic, Gyroscope, Fingerprint, Barometer, Hall, HRM
• 142.4 x 69.6 x 7.9mm, 152g
• WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5GHz), MIMO,Bluetooth v 4.2 LE, ANT+, USB 2.0, NFC, Location
• LTE: B1/B2/B4/B5/B7/B8, HSPA: B1/B2/B4/B5/B8, GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz

Samsung Galaxy S7 edge specs

• Android 6.0 Marshmallow
• 5.5″ Quad HD Super AMOLED (2560 X 1440, 534ppi, Edge Screen)
• 32GB (UFS 2.0) + microSD (up to 200GB)
• 4GB (LPDDR4)
• Exynos 8890 processor (Canada), Snapdragon 820 (US)
• Rear camera: Dual Pixel 12MP / 5MP, (F1.7), Smart OIS
• 3,600mAh non-removable battery
• IP68 Water & Dust Resistant / Wireless Charging
• 5MP front-facing camera f/1.7
• Accelerometer, Proximity, RGB Light, Geo-magnetic, Gyroscope,Fingerprint, Barometer, Hall, HRM
• 150.9 x 72.6 x 7.7mm, 157g
• WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5GHz), MIMO, Bluetooth v 4.2 LE, ANT+, USB 2.0, NFC, Location

Subtle design shifts

While it’s true the S7’s build is similar to the S6’s, its slightly curved back and front – borrowed from the Note 5 – give the smartphone a unique look that helps it stand out from the wash of other flagship Android devices on the market. The unique curvature also makes it easier to pick up the smartphone from a flat surface. This results in a slightly narrower bezel that’s almost flush with the sides of the phone. Still, those hoping for a G5-like complete overhaul with the S7, will be disappointed. At the outset, both the S7 and S7 edge look nearly identical to their predecessors, save for a few subtle differences.

Just like last year’s S6, the S7 features aluminum sides and a Gorilla Glass 4 front and back, which means yet again, Samsung’s new flagship Galaxy devices are a magnet for fingerprints and smudges. What is interesting about the new handsets however, is the S7 measures in at 5.1-inches, and the S7 edge is 5.5-inches, 0.2-inches smaller than the S6 edge+, which strangely, was only released a few months ago in Canada. It seems Samsung is aiming to simplify its device lineup with the S7/S7 edge, a move that makes sense considering the number of high-end Android phones currently on the market.

In general, the S7 will appeal to those who prefer smaller smartphones, coming in at just slightly larger than Apple’s 4.7-inch iPhone 6s (which is still be too large for some). The S7 edge, with its considerably larger size, is targeting the phablet demographic, falling slightly short of Samsung’s flagship phablet, the Note 5.

What’s most interesting about the S7/S7 edge, however, is how Samsung seems to have taken criticism of the S6 to heart. Last year, Galaxy fans complained about the S6’s lack of a micro-SD card slot, a popular feature in the S5 that allowed users to expand the phone’s storage. With the S7, Samsung has brought the micro-SD card slot back. The same can be said about the S7’s IP 67-certified waterproof casing, another popular S5 feature ditched with the release of the S6.

The only holdout fan demand is the ability to remove the S7’s battery, a feature LG heavily touted the G5 is capable of during its keynote presentation at Mobile World Congress. While this is far from the first time an OEM has listened to criticism of past devices, it’s refreshing to see Samsung adopt this approach with the S7/S7 edge.

In terms of other changes, the S7’s home button, which also acts as its still snappy fingerprint scanner, is slightly more square, and doesn’t protrude as far from the phone when compared to its predecessor.

Flagship powerhouse

Under the hood is where most of the S7/S7 edge’s improvements have gone down. In terms of battery, the S7 edge features a hefty 3,600 mAh battery, and its smaller counterpart comes equipped with a 3,000 mAh power source.

Our tests indicated that both the S7 and S7 edge performed excellently when it comes to battery life. In my experience, the S7 easily lasted an entire work day of moderate use, and even after that, well into the evening. Turning off the S7/S7 edge’s always-on display, a feature I didn’t find very useful (the always-on display is only able to show time, missed calls and emails) despite its undeniably cool factor, improved battery life, leading me to believe that Samsung’s “1 percent per hour claim” isn’t completely accurate.

It’s worth pointing out, however, that the S7’s AMOLED 1440 x 2560 pixel display, allows the phone to light up individual pixels as needed, which means it doesn’t use as much battery power as it would if the screen was always completely illuminated.

In Canada, both the S7 and S7 edge feature Samsung’s own silicon, the Exynos 8890, which according to some benchmark scores, lags slightly behind the Qualcomm 820, the processor included in the smartphone in other regions, most notably the U.S market. The average user, however, likely won’t notice a performance difference between the two processors.

In our tests, whether multitasking between resource-intensive apps, or playing high-end video games, the S7 performed excellently, with no lag or stuttering. The smartphone’s 4GB of RAM, an increase over the S6’s 3GB, is also a contributing factor in the S7’s impressive performance.

In an interesting twist, Samsung has also opted not to include USB Type-C in the S7/S7 edge, likely so the smartphone is still compatible with its Gear VR virtual reality headset. Furthermore, while USB-C is the future of connectivity, the future just isn’t here yet, and any device utilizing the technology will likely create unforeseen adapter issues.

The new smartphone camera benchmark

The S7’s most impressive improvement over the S6 is its camera. While the S6’s shooter was the best Android camera around when it launched last year, its lowlight performance was underwhelming.

To solve this problem, with the S7, Samsung is touting new dual pixel technology, which allows up to 25 percent more light to hit the device’s camera sensor thanks to larger pixels, but also lowers its back camera from 16 megapixels to 12 megapixels (the S7’s front-facing camera measures in at 5 megapixels).

This is similar to the technology often featured in high-end DSLRs like the Canon 70D. Double-pressing on the home button still launches the S7’s camera app, just like it did with the S6.

In my experience, the S7’s camera takes vibrant photographs and features the fastest autofocus I’ve ever seen in a smartphone. Switching focus between subjects can be performed in a fraction of a second, both when snapping still photos and filming video. The new camera tech also performs exceedingly well under low-light conditions, surpassing the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X’s shooter by a considerable margin. The addition of the S7’s f/1.7 aperature also allows for interesting compositions involving shallow depth of field.

But does it take better photographs than the current smartphone camera king, the iPhone 6s Plus? This is the question our readers are likely asking as I gush about the S7’s impressive photography capabilities.

Some will disagree, but I actually think the S7 surpasses the iPhone 6s Plus marginally, especially when it comes to taking pictures under less than ideal lighting conditions. It’s worth noting, however, that the S7’s camera does seem to suffer from white balance detection issues, especially under tungsten lightbulbs.

A closer look at the s7 edge

By: Igor Bonifacic

The Galaxy S7 edge is Samsung’s most refined and accomplished smartphone to date. It takes the already significant strengths of the Galaxy S7 and adds to them in ways that make sense.

The star of the show is the edge’s QHD display. If you’re like me, you prefer your phone on the slightly smaller side. The good news is that, even at 5.5 inches, the S7 edge doesn’t feel like a big phone; in fact, between improved ergonomics and its signature curved display, the S7 edge is always comfortable to hold and it’s even possible to use it with one hand — though just barely.

And while the curved display still doesn’t add a whole lot of functionality to the smartphone, there’s no denying that even a year after the release of the S6 edge, it’s still a sight to behold.

A large 3,600mAh battery also keeps the unit running, even through a busy day. I’ve used this phone as my main device for the past week and have routinely been able to get almost two full days usage on a single charge.

However, what this phone doesn’t represent is a significant move towards a more useable version of Samsung’s Android skin, TouchWiz. Granted, there are improvements here — creating folders is finally as easy as dragging one app on top of another, for example — though a lot of the TouchWiz is still unintuitive, especially for someone coming from a more stock version of Android. Switching keyboards, for instance, still requires the user to pull down the notification shade and tap on the keyboard tab.

On the plus side, Samsung makes a more compelling software case for the edge’s curved display than it did last year. There’s the new Tasks edge feature, which allows users to pin specific app actions to the side of the screen. For instance, the user can add a shortcut to jump to the Clock app’s timer feature or to open a new tab in the included web browser.

The caveat, for the time being, is that this feature only works with Samsung’s first party apps. Also new are vertical widgets, which actually convinced me to start using widgets because they don’t take up a huge part of the screen and are hidden most of the time. That said, even with the new edge features in tow, I’m not convinced there’s a compelling case to spend an extra $100 on this device.

There’s no doubt in my mind this is Samsung’s best phone to date, but the simple economics of the S7 edge make it even harder to recommend than its predecessor.

If you have the money to spare, then yes, this is a great phone to buy. Otherwise, there are more functional — though less striking — alternatives out there for a lot less money.

An iterative future

With the S7 and S7 edge Samsung has made a number of subtle innovations. For some, however, these changes likely won’t be enough, especially those who already own the S6 or S6 edge. When the S7 and S7 edge’s hefty off-contract cost – $900 and $1000 respectively – and on-contract two-year price – $400 vs. $500 – are taken into consideration, Samsung’s new flagship Galaxy line is an expensive proposition.

But if you’re looking to pick up a new Android phone, or are currently holding onto an aging S4 or S5, Samsung’s latest flagship effort amounts to one of the sleekest looking high-end Android smartphones on the market.

Pros

• One of the most powerful smartphones on the market.
• Stellar camera with fast autofocus.
• Impressive battery life.
• Size differentiation between S7 and S7 edge targets different users.

Cons

• TouchWiz still features strange design decisions
• Expensive, even on a 2-year plan.
• Iterative update over the S6 (this means it might not appeal to S6 and S6 edge owners)

Last night emails were sent to develpers by the App Store team announcing a new iTunes Connect feature – weekly App Analytics email reports. This is a welcome addition to iTunes Connect. I check App Analytics occassionally, especially after a significant app release or marketing push, but getting analytics data on a regular schedule is a nice way to keep on top of analytics more regularly.

You can opt into emailed reports with the link provided in the email you receive from the App Store team, or go to iTunes Connect and opt in under the Users and Rolls section.

You can opt into App Analytics email reports under Users and Roles.

Hello, SUMO Nation!

Today we have a guest post by one of our most involved and organized community members from Bangladesh – Ashickur. He has been supporting SUMO for quite a while now and working really hard on making the Bangladesh Mozilla community a success, together with many other great Mozillians in the area.

This post is about an event that he co-organized. If you are interested in organizing an event for SUMO, take a look at our Event Kit page.

Why did we meet?

After completing localization of all the existing KB articles in November 2014, during our first ever SuMo community meetup in July 2015, a big part of our local community came together and talked about future plans for SuMo. Thus, one of the main reasons to meet in Dhaka was to check what we have accomplished according to the plan – but also to plan ahead, for the next six months.

We also wanted to start working on a local style guide for bn-BD localization. Reviewing the problems of our current methods and ways of improving the language we use required our top contributors to sit together.

Finally, it was high time for our community to welcome the new people who joined the SuMo team from Dhaka, as before we were mostly aiming for contributors outside of the capital.

Who organized the event?

The organization team consisted of Ashickur, Ashfaq, Seeam, Amit, Pranjal, and Sharif. Seeam is our community’s main visual designer, while Sharif runs the Mozilla Bangladesh community website. Ashfaq decided to take the responsibility for leading the creation of the style guide.

How did the organization go?

The organization was not hard, because we had previous experience in organizing the venue, projector, sound system, and all the logistics. Thanks to this, the event went smoothly. We learned that sharing responsibilities with new members helps us grow the community and make everyone work better together. The biggest challenge, as always, is to find the right people to lead the community discussion and involve everyone in it. We try to address this with varying the agendas between events and set different goals to keep everyone involved.

What was the plan for the event and what were the outcomes?

Our first goal was to support our old contributors and give them new motivation. Since we wanted to have the style guide in place first, we asked them to share their stories with new and potential contributors, which sparked a lot of interest.

We also wanted to organize the localizers a bit better for the future – to have a person for each product, who would check updated documents and informed the localizers each week about new material to work on.

The biggest success for us was a lively discussion about the existing localized content. We received a lot of constructive feedback from old and new contributors that will help us compile a useful style guide and create a glossary for the most frequently used technical terms that will allow for easier and more consistent localization in the future.

That’s a LOT of happy faces in one photo :-) Thank you Ashickur and Mozilla Bangladesh! We are all looking forward to more great community events in the region.

We hope you found this post informative and inspiring – let us know in the comments!

David Marcus from Facebook today announced on Twitter that the company will start rolling out a new version of Facebook Messenger for Android starting from today that will come with a brand new Material Design. Continue reading →