Anthony Panozzo's Blog

In a comment on my last post, Matt asked several exceedingly thought-provoking questions. I was going to respond there, but I had too many thoughts for a single comment. I had to take off my hat because I was getting too warm while thinking about this…

Ah, but what to pick, Mr. Panozzo? The road less taken? The thing that you love? The thing that really could work? The thing you can make a living at? The thing you're rather disinclined toward but you're good at and know will have the greatest impact?

Knowing you can pick a couple, sure, but you yourself admitted to 500 possibilities. Maybe one of each, or something that answers more than one question?

What'd you pick?

These deeply resonated with me, as I have thought along similar lines. As an example, in October in some personal notes I wrote the question "What is the highest good man can accomplish?" It seems like some of the questions were along these lines, asking what is the best or highest thing that one can aim for. Can you make the best impact doing something that you are especially predisposed to do, or something that you really just want to do?

As far as "what'd you pick", I'm not sure if this should expand to "what would you pick" or "what did you pick." Either way, haven't quite gotten there yet. :) I'm still exploring these questions myself. With that said, I don't have answers, but here are some thoughts.

Viewing the questions and possible answers through the lens of existentialism applies almost perfectly here. There is the knowledge that you have limited time and that ideas cannot be implemented without using some of it. There is uncertainty in the value of a decision. What will it will be worth to you, and what will it be worth to other people? What are your weights for these values? There is angst because you realize that you are absolutely free to choose.

Recently I've noticed an interesting phenomenon. Someone starts talking about a new idea or group or practice or strategy or improvement, and someone else says, "hey, I thought of that six months ago, but no one seemed to think that it was a good idea."

In the past I read about the value of something being a function of the quality of the idea and the quality of execution. This makes a lot of sense to me. You can have the greatest idea in the whole world, but without effort and execution, there is no value. Even a medium quality idea done moderately well is useful.

I have about five hundred ideas right now. Some of them are pretty good, some are a little questionable, some old, some recent. Unfortunately, I am currently making $0.00 (that exchanges to 0.00 Euros) off of those ideas. That's $0.00 worth of value that has been created by these written down ideas. They certainly give me a sense of excitement when I look at them, so I guess they're worth something. I look back in fond admiration, and still think they're pretty good. Hmm… maybe I'm attached. :)

Mike Kelly posted to the IWST news group about two upcoming group meetings that are taking place in Indianapolis. I listed them in order of perceived relevance. The first one is free, and is a day long, similar to the excellent IWST that I attended in September. The second one is not free, and lasts two three days. The first one seems particularly useful, although the second might be as well.

I've edited liberally, so here goes…

Workshop on Regulated Software Testing

May 15, 2009

Title: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives Authors: Leonard Mlodinow Published: May 2008 Length: 272 pages

After taking two quarters of statistics and two of probability, I wasn't sure that I would learn much by reading The Drunkard's Walk. Fortunately, the history of the evolution of thought regarding chance and the ramifications of randomness on everyday life were explained to the point where I gained new insights into this area. It reinforced and clarified existing views that I had as well.

The most important point that was made is that there are a large class of things that humans typically see as being based on skill but are more likely based a great deal on luck. While CEOs and Hollywood film producers are paid top dollar for their skills, there seems to be little correlation with actual skill for their positions. Many events that involve human decision are unpredictable to the point that they can be considered random. I enjoyed the discussion of reversion to the mean presented throughout the book. Essentially, we tend to praise someone and see them as smart or skilled when they succeed, and then tend to disparage the same person when they do not appear to succeed. Mlodinow explains that our approval or disapproval often has little to do with someone's next attempt because often the performance in the event is somewhat random. When I yell at someone, it is likely that they will do better than before. When I praise someone, it is likely that they will do poorer than before. Likewise, a mutual fund manager is likely to be lauded when she does well, and given the boot when she does poorly, even though picking stocks is a mostly random process.

The first breakout session I attended was the most interesting. It was titled "iPhone User Interface Design."

The first point the presenter made was that the percentage of time that you spend on portions of the development cycle is quite a bit different for a successful iPhone app than most software applications. He showed a diagram that looked way cooler than this:

What this means is that you need to spend a lot more time in the design aspects of your app throughout the life cycle than you normally would. This set the tone for the rest of the presentation.

He defined "design" as mapping out requirements, doing the art and layout, and figuring out how core features and navigation are going to work. The cycle for developing a new product should typically go: familiarize, conceptualize, realize, finalize. Executing these well will take your application from average to excellent.

Familiarize

One solid suggestion was to read through Apple's Human Interface Guide. Apple has spent a lot of time thinking about how people will interact with the iPhone and iPod Touch, so you don't need to duplicate their work. What's more, there are many conventions that you will be unaware of and unwittingly break. For example, Apple intends all buttons to have rounded corners, so if you have something that's not a button, don't make it rounded. Likewise, buttons should look like buttons because users have a model of what a button looks like and what it does.

The presenter reiterated considerations voiced in the general session, such as thinking about where the user will use the application and considering general properties of the iPhone and how it differs from the web and from a desktop computer.

One significant suggestion was to design for the thirty-second use case. You need to consider that the user wants to open your app and get what they need within thirty seconds. If your app has a bunch of meaningless screens or has poor performance, it will significantly hinder your ability to help them. If it takes twenty seconds to navigate where they need to go, you only have ten seconds to please them. If you can save any time by remembering or determining data (zip code for searching for restaurants, for instance), you should do that. It takes a lot of time and mental effort to type things in on the iPhone, and it would be very annoying if the user has to type something in multiple times.