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Speaker 1: How'd you like to listen to dot NetRocks with no ads? Easy?

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Become a patron For just five dollars a month, you

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shows have no ads. Twenty dollars a month will get

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you that and a special dot NetRocks patron mug. Sign

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up now at Patreon dot dot NetRocks dot com. Hey,

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Carl and Richard here with your twenty twenty four NDC schedule.

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Speaker 2: Will be at as many NDC conferences as possible this year,

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and you should consider attending no matter what. The Copenhagen

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Developers Festival happens August twenty sixth through the thirtieth. Tickets

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at Cphdevfest dot com.

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Speaker 1: NDC Porto is happening October fourteenth through the eighteenth. The

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early bird discount ends June fourteenth. Tickets at Ndcporto dot com.

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Speaker 3: And we'll see you there, we hope.

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Speaker 1: Hey, guess what it's dot net rox. I'm Carl Franklin,

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and I'm Richard Campbell, and Billy Hollis is here. Billy,

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you can chime in anytime, because I think you can.

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Speaker 2: Pass the threshold.

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Speaker 4: I appreciate that I do, and I might, but you know,

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I know you guys have early show things you need

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to do, so I'll want you to go ahead and

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do that.

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Speaker 2: No your first rodeo.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Billy, I don't know. I kind of think

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you're really gonna love my better no framework. And there's

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two of them for today, so by all means, feel

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free to jump in. After we roll the crazy music,

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let's go.

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Speaker 4: What do you got?

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Speaker 1: All right? So I have a link to a Reddit

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rant and it's all about somebody who's ranting about zamal

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or WPF. Right, so here you go WPF zamal frustrations. Bill,

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You're gonna love this. I love that this is good

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and this is from three years ago. I am attempting

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to broaden my c sharpabilities by making different UI projects.

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I've had two experience with examal, once at making a

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simple phone app, another just now while trying to make

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a personal project. Both have been incredibly infuriating. The first

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time I would just assume I was being dumb, but

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now I feel as though examal is just a steaming

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pile of dog shit nice. Anytime I edit a file,

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dot zamal er dot c S Visual Studio loses its

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fucking mind and throws the most ridiculous errors that I

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have nothing to do with the problem. And I think

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that's more about visual Studio and no about examble. But

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half the time some magicalxamal dot g dot cs file

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breaks for no good reason in parentheses. No, it's not

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the common problem name spaces being wrong. Cleaning in or

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rebuilding the solution does not remove those errors. I have

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to let it happen, clear the file, and save it

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over again again. Nothing else in the change is just

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saving over these filed generated files fixes it. Then when

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I go to launch the project, it will not bring

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up the main view seventy five percent of the time

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without changing my code. Just some seemingly random combination of

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cleaning and rebuilding allows it to start again. I'm way

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better with back end stuff, so maybe I'm doing something

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horribly wrong. I read the documentation, searched for solutions to

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my particular errors, and check every detail, but still feel

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like examble is an uphill battle. End of rant. And

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then he goes on and people try to talk him

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off the ledge. But Billy, I thought.

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Speaker 4: You, well, Zambo is an uphill battle.

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Speaker 1: I thought you'd get a kick out of that.

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Speaker 4: Learning how to use it effectively is hard. It's the

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C plus plus of enterdetechn of versation.

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Speaker 2: Just waiting with a zero pointer to move everything.

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Speaker 4: But you can do things with it that are difficult, impractical,

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or in a few cases impossible to do with other

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common technologies. And once you do learn how to do it,

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and you learn to switch your mind and how to

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think about it, then you can create experiences for the

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users that have enormous value. It's worth it, but I'm not.

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I've never been one to say that you should just

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jump and dizamble and start using it. And no, it's

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it's it's a real uphill struggle. I mean, look, I

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made a lot of money training people and examble for

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many years because I constructed an approach to help people

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switch from the way they think about programming in regular

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code see sharp or whatever, which is an imperative way of.

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Speaker 1: And as I said, I think this guy's problem was

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clearly one hundred percent visual studio.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't you know. I read a little further down

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the line there he was using MVVM cross, So I

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wonder if he wasn't using it well, because you know,

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you have to approach those libraries with their intent. So

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I suspect he may have been just fighting with MVVM.

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And let's face it, when you mess with something related

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to the library, it's gonna spew terrible messages like you

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were gonna have it.

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Speaker 1: All right, So I have something else that I want

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to bring up in better no framework. I actually have

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two things. So Zamal for Blazer came out last year. Now,

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Zamal for Blazer is the brain child of Giovanni Albani,

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who's the guy behind open Silver, and it's also based

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on open Silver. So this is basically unleash the power

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example in your Blazer applications. Yeah, so it and open

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Silver was sort of an open source version of silver

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Light that Giovanni started. In fact, we interviewed him twice.

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Speaker 2: Yep, yeah we he interviewed him twenty delivered.

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Speaker 1: It exactly in twenty twenty and in twenty twenty one

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when he delivered it, and so so this is this

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is interesting stuff. So if you're you know, you want

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to get on the web and silver Light was the end,

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I'll be all for you. And you liked Xamal in

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the browser, uh, Zambal for Blazer, Zamal Dash four Dash

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Blazer dot com checking out.

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Speaker 4: That's been on my list to check out for a while.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like a show in the making, isn't it.

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Speaker 4: I've done most of my stuff in that space with

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the Uno platform, yeah, and that has worked out pretty

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well in general. They was a real road there over

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the last five or six years to get that complete

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and stable, especially for the web. Some of the early

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stuff they.

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Speaker 2: Did, yeah, you know, did a lot of twist and turns.

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They came into the game as a UWP platform and

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realized they needed to transform and did yeah, like quite

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an accomplishment really.

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Speaker 4: So they're an interesting alternative to Zammering now for multiplatform stuff,

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and so I've been spending time with that. But yes,

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I'd like to take a look at Zambal for Blazer

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because I really do hope that the responsiveness of the

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Blazer engine will be the way to get a lot

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of the experiences I want to see and just normal websites.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I'm I'm not gonna stop on the

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whole visual studio challenge thing. I often had problems like

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that even with MAUI in visual studio, with xamble, you know,

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overriding and generating files and then being out of sync

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and stuff. It's better now. But one of the things

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that's cool about the web platform is the whole rendering process.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: You don't typically have those problems because but the end

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product you're looking at is just pure markup right in

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code or whatever. So anyway, that's a that's my rant.

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Who's talking to us?

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Speaker 2: Richard grabbed a calm on top of Billy's last show

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when we did back in December twenty two, episode eighteen

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twenty two. Coincidental numbers. By the way, I believe this

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is your twenty fourth episode, Billy, oh man, I wow,

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do believe we owe you like a sack of submarine

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though this point. You were a guest on episode three three, Yeah,

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you know, and here you are now on what is

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this episode nineteen fifteen?

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Speaker 4: So I can't believe people aren't just tired to listen

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it to me.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm not, you know. I call you routinely because

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I see the work you're doing. I'm like, oh, dude,

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I want to talk about that, right, Like that's the reality.

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Speaker 4: Always doing something new. I'm too easily bored to keep

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doing the same self.

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Speaker 1: So exactly true.

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Speaker 2: Still, so that last episode was Thinking High Level Design,

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which I thought was really enjoyable. We had a great

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conversation there, and the audience seemed to agree because lots

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of messages and this one's from Ismo who said this

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sounded like a fun episode of discourse with Billy, Carl

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and Richard. It really got some wheels turning into discussion.

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One particular part of the episode that stood out for

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me is when Billy mentioned the idea that companies quote

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have designers, but they don't know how to implement design

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thinking and produce great high level design. Similarly, I find

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we could apply the same logic to most enterprise architects.

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They know how to organize and dive deep into code

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and maybe how to output some pretty nice cloud diagrams,

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but we seem to fail spectacularly in putting all the

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pieces together to make a very well put together pieces

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of software. High level design thinking can fit this, if

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only we could get out of our own way.

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Speaker 4: I can't argue with any of that.

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Speaker 2: Well, my immediate thought is, you know where do most

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architects come from? This is my only promotion path as

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a developer, So you're sort of driven into the architectural role,

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whether it's a natural fit for you or not, and

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you rarely get additional training. And so this idea of

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being that architectural leadership, of really being you know, responsible

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for the shape of your project, I just don't know

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that anybody takes that on intentionally. You have to eventually

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realize it needs to be done or you don't. And

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it's a weak spot in the whole thing.

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Speaker 4: There isn't really an education path for it, right, Yeah,

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So somebody has kind of have some natural talent and

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try things out, maybe they have a mentor if they're lucky.

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But the supply of enterprise architects who are actually good

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at what they do is so limited that it's it's

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hard to find a mentor and do things. You have

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to solve real problems to do it, and we really

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don't have anything a lot. We have less than ten

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percent of the expertise in our product atensure that we

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need in this profession.

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Speaker 1: Well, and going back to design aptitude, I have a

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story from my own family. My daughter Emmy in as

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a junior in high school. Turns out she had ridiculous

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artistic talent, right she was doing three D models, and

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she met with one of her mentors who said, you

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should go to in for industrial design. So she went

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to Rhode Island School Design, which is Risney's prestigious design

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school in these coasts, and Risney and got a degree

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in industrial design. And I said to her, hey, you know,

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can you help me with like some some web stuff.

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She's like, I don't want to do web stuff. Hey

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can you help me with some graphics? And that I

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don't want to do graphics, you know, she's like, she

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was like, I want to do industrial design. Guess what

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she's doing.

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Speaker 4: Now, what's that?

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Speaker 1: Web design?

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Speaker 4: Web design?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? All right, well she's doing it on the side,

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but yeah, she.

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Speaker 4: Has That's just that's the easy way to get into design.

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And it is a look. I go to a lot

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of meetings of meetups for designers, for visual designers, and

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I talked to a lot of people at conferences and

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things like that, and we've reached a point now where

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those people, for a lot of the decision makers in business,

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those web designers, that's what design is. Yeah, as far

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as executives are concerned, that's not really healthy. Because that's

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why I started to talk more about design thinking instead

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of just design because the term design is so overloaded.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so sure so is well, thank you so much

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for your comment, and the copy music co Buy is

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on its way to you. And if you'd like a

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copy of music go buy right a comment on the

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website at dot at rocks dot com or on the facebooks.

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We publish every show there and if you comment there

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and to read on the show, we'll send you a

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copy of music go buy.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, music to code buy is still going strong. Yeah,

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people are still loving it helps you stay and focus

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while you code or do anything deep work. It's the

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term I heard today. I like that talking about work.

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All right, So let me formally introduce Billy Hollis in

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case you've been sleeping under a rock for the last

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twenty years. Billy is a software designer and developer with

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a contrarian streak that often challenges conventional wisdom in the industry.

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Is that true, Richard.

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Speaker 3: No mo.

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Speaker 2: If you need to to testers for every developer, you

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must suck as.

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Speaker 3: A developer.

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Speaker 1: End quote. He has a consulting practice in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.

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He and his team focus on user experience design, which

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is ux advanced user interface development. Rules based architectures and

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healthcare systems. He teaches classes for design thinking and UX

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design and technical classes on zamal for win UI and

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Zamle for WPF. Okay, there you go, your official bio

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for today. Billy, you go.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, And what the bio never says, because there's no

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good way to put it in there, is that what

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I really am is a generalist. And I decided that

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all the way back in high school that that's what

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I was going to be. In an economy where everybody

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tells you to specialize, I already decided I was going

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to be a generalist.

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Speaker 2: When I first met you, and at least twenty years

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ago now you were much more an app architect personality.

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I watched you evolve into someone who cared deeply about design.

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Speaker 4: Well, you watched me expose it. Yeah, perhaps, says but

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I cared about it before that. It's just that nobody

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else in the industry did, so I didn't talk about

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it then.

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Speaker 2: Well, and the tech also changed, Like you were there

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first when zamble emerged, and you were long before Microsoft

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knew what the heck to do with that, you were

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already gone in a way.

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Speaker 4: Well, that was the reason I embraced it so much.

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Is that sensibility about doing design? Remember my first book

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in nineteen ninety nine has the title Design, Specification and Objects,

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which kind of helps you understand that I was moving

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in that direction even earlier. But yeah, nobody cared about

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it until some of the technologies came out to be

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able to do some of these interesting things.

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Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety nine when the word objects was novel was novel.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and the iPhone was one of the break points

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to put people into a new way of thinking to.

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Speaker 2: Learn the words.

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Speaker 4: So that's why I began talking about it more. I

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cared about it before that, and I've certainly learned a

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huge amount of the last fifteen years. But yeah, I

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always cared more about it that I think than most

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people in the industry.

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Speaker 1: So you're thinking these days about how to make design pay?

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What do you mean by that?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well, see, that's that's because the entire area is confused.

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I talked about this. You go to a typical person

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running a software development team and he somebody tells him, man,

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you need a designer, and he goes to HR what's

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what's what are they going to get? They're probably going

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to get a web designer, because that's just what the

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industry kind of thinks. Well, the term design thinking is

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to help break loose from that, because from my perspective,

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that kind of visual oriented design is the lowest step

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above not doing design at all.

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Speaker 1: Hamburger menu or no Hamburger menu.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't mean to say it doesn't any value,

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because it does. Nobody wants an ugly application or website,

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and proper layout and good cosmetics do in fact increase

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the quality and value of websites and of apps. But

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when you start getting into interaction now, the potential for

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design to do things goes up. And there's a spectrum

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that goes all the way up to business process re engineering,

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designing entirely new ways for a business to operate. Design

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thinking embraces that entire spectrum. And I want people in

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the industry to kind of understand what level are you at,

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because what level you're at now determines what kind of

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people do you need to get to help you Billy.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes you know this the simplest decision, the simplest decision

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should it go here or here, can make the difference

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between some process that takes an hour and a process

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that takes ten to fifteen minutes, the simplest decision.

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Speaker 4: There's a famous article that's that's still relevant called the

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six million dollar Button. Yeah, you've probably seen that article

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one time or another. Thad if you google that, anybody

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who's listening can google that and get the article on

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how moving a button save six million dollars?

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Speaker 1: Are banks the worst? Bank websites the worst? In your opinion?

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I mean in my opinion. Richard's nodding in, So I

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have a local bank, and I wouldn't trade them for

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the world. They're the best because they're local. Even when

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I go to like the virtual ATM, like the people

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that come on screen, Oh hey, Carl, how's it going.

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How's the band right? Like? I feel connected to this bank.

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And yet the process for doing ach payments, which is,

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you know, direct deposit payments, requires you to go to

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a screen see a list of the last payments that

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you did, that all the way down to Texas, you know,

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And to start a new one you have to scroll

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all the way to the bottom and hit new nice.

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And then after you do a new one, it goes

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to the bottom again, and so you have to sort

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by date and then sort by date again to get

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to what you just put in so you can edit it.

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And this is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever seen.

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And it's a bank.

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Speaker 4: Well, yeah, banks are some of the worst offenders, and

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there really isn't much excuse for that. My eighty eight

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year old mom does online banking and they keep changing

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the site. Now. Look, she's smart and she did eventually

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learn to do her online banking. In fact, she prefers

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it now. Her mobility is more limited than it used

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to be, so not having to trot down the bank

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is a big help for her. But I mean when

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she calls me once every year or two, they've changed

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the page and I don't understand what.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, they made it easier, mom, They and they didn't.

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Speaker 4: Make it easier, that's the problem. In many cases, they

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just changed it for the sake of change. Now the

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banks are learning and they are getting better. My bank

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US Bank actually does a pretty good job with their

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website and just an excellent job with the app that

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they put on the phone, So they're kind of learning this.

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But yeah, I hear complaints about banking sites and apps

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all the time.

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Speaker 1: I guess if it works, that's enough for them. Right,

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because people are going to be able to do and

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it doesn't matter how frustrating it is for them, they'll

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do it.

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Speaker 4: That was a quote that I coined way back in

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probably twenty eleven, was that for most of the time

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in this industry, just making something possible was enough that

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people consider themselves successful. But it really shouldn't be it. Also,

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you also should consider making it easy as part of

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their success.

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Speaker 1: And enjoyable even shall we even go that far?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, delightful, but yeah, okay, we talked about the six

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million dollar button. The real question always is you're delaying

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writing code, messing around with the design stuff. Let's just

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get to work.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, And my perspective on that is, and having been

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involved in a ton of projects both with and without

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design up front, all the way back to see stuff

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in the eighties and the late seventies, I have never

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seen a project where designed doing design up front wasted

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time or took more time until you finally got delivery.

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And the reason is it eliminates a lot of blond alleys, right.

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I mean, if you don't do design, you're going to

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end up doing things that you take to people and

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they go, now, this isn't what I needed, or this

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isn't good now, or I hate this and then have

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to do rework on it. So the idea that you

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need to start coding first, I mean back end stuff.

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I guess maybe even there though, I think the back

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end is sometimes more affected by what goes on with

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the user than a lot of developers tend to think.

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Speaker 1: But developers, and they do, dare I say, test their

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apps in you know, in development, they have to test them.

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So the idiot that designed that page had to fill

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the screen with dummy data and scroll all the way

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to the bottom. You would think he said, hey, I

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got an idea, let's put these buttons at the top

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of the page. He would probably.

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Speaker 2: Had three records, like he never considered that somebody would

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have more.

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Speaker 1: Probably right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but you've got that psychology, Carl, And I've got

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it too that I see these flaws and that irritate me.

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I have an emotional response to these flaws. But I

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can tell you that a lot of developers don't.

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Speaker 1: My wife that my wife uses an app and she

401
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can't figure out She's like, some damn programmers screw this up.

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Speaker 4: And I think that's that's good. Yeah, especially for developers

403
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they ought to be offended by poor design on behalf

404
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of the users. But the fact of the matter is,

405
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I'll run into a lot of developers that just oh, scroll, okay, fine,

406
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I mean, they're paying me by the hour, does it

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matter to me how much I scroll.

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Speaker 1: Kelly's mother is a Southern bell from Lake, Missouri, right,

409
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so anytime anything screws up, she will always say, some

410
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man probably designed this.

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Speaker 4: I will say that in general, while the difference isn't great,

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the women in this industry do pretty well at design,

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and maybe somewhat better than the men. Now, there are

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men who do a great job, but there are more

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men who just aren't any good at it at all.

416
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So the women win on average.

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Speaker 2: I think, And I wonder if it's just a lack

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of awareness, like you're not noticing that this UX could

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be better well.

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Speaker 4: And that's why some of the very first stuff I

421
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ever started talking about in seminars and such for UX

422
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was about the principles of how the brain works now

423
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the visual system works, because that sensitizes you to things

424
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that if you know why something doesn't work, well, why

425
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don't people like to scroll? Well? That does not work

426
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in concert with the visual and cognitive systems. You're constantly

427
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having to refresh and absorb new material, which which causes

428
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cognitive effort as well as wasted time. So when you

429
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start to learn some of these principles about how the

430
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brain and the eyes work, now you tend to notice

431
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things more that don't work in concert with them, and

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thereby slow people down and frustrate them.

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Speaker 1: Do you do a lot of reworking of legacy apps?

434
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Speaker 4: Billy Well, I personally don't do a lot. I do some,

435
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and that's probably fifteen to twenty percent of my work.

436
00:22:36,759 --> 00:22:41,000
But in terms of people want being interested in it,

437
00:22:41,039 --> 00:22:46,599
that's a very high, highly ranked topic because, let's face it,

438
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lots of teams have these legacy apps that are there

439
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are many millions of dollars invested in and they have

440
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yet to experience the pressure to replace that moved new technologies.

441
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Typically a platform change, a dramatic business change causes new

442
00:23:02,359 --> 00:23:04,319
people to move to new platforms, and that's when they

443
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typically involved me. But most people aren't in that situation.

444
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So I've been doing a session lately on ux designed

445
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for legacy apps. That's been pretty popular. I've done it

446
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at several conferences.

447
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Speaker 1: That's good. I have a customer and I looked at

448
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this legacy app that I was upgrading. I said, how

449
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old is this? And they said, oh, since about episode

450
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eight hundred.

451
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Speaker 2: Twenty thirteen is something like that stuff like that. So

452
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I've still got your list of shows up there. So yeah, yeah,

453
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it would have been about twenty thirteen, twenty twelve.

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Speaker 4: I basically remember that because episode six hundred was the

455
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one that introduced using the joke you talked about their

456
00:23:47,319 --> 00:23:51,480
Richard where I was going on about some of the

457
00:23:51,599 --> 00:23:54,119
people whose heads in the cloud, about how you do

458
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development and all the extra testing and all the stuff

459
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that goes with it, and we did that on stage

460
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in San Diego, yep and twenty ten, I think, and

461
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I remember Richard falling off the chair when I too

462
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:07,160
punched the line of that jair.

463
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Speaker 1: You couldn't revive me. So tell us about so tell

464
00:24:11,519 --> 00:24:15,799
us about this talk on legacy apps designed for legacy apps.

465
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Speaker 4: On legacy apps. Yeah, it came about because of something

466
00:24:18,519 --> 00:24:21,880
interesting that I hadn't planned it because since I don't

467
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,200
normally do that work, a lot of my talks are

468
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:27,960
based on the work that I've actually done. In this case,

469
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though I do sessions for people for free to sort

470
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of introduce them to the whole idea of design. And

471
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that's partially because we don't have sales when we don't

472
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do traditional marketing, so that introduces me to people. I mean,

473
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the primary way that I find new people to work

474
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with is the conferences and going to and doing sessions

475
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and talking to people in depth there. But I hit

476
00:24:51,519 --> 00:24:53,880
upon another way a few years back, when the virtual

477
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:57,359
stuff became very easy to do, is well, if people

478
00:24:57,359 --> 00:24:59,079
want to lunch and learn, well, let's put me on

479
00:24:59,079 --> 00:25:01,839
the screen man, I'll I'll talk for forty five minutes

480
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:04,319
about some topic. And I had a list of them,

481
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:06,640
and I had somebody that asked me to do it

482
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,160
looked at my list and nothing really lit them up,

483
00:25:09,319 --> 00:25:11,400
and they said, well, we're stuck with this legacy app.

484
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:14,359
What advice would you give us about applying design? So

485
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:16,319
I wrote a whole new session on that and it

486
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:18,640
was it was very successful, and I started doing it

487
00:25:18,839 --> 00:25:22,240
at conferences too, and it gets it gets bigger audiences

488
00:25:22,279 --> 00:25:25,359
typically than my sessions on how you redesign an app from.

489
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:27,119
Speaker 1: Scratch step one, burn it down.

490
00:25:30,079 --> 00:25:33,200
Speaker 4: That's a problem inte. And so I started thinking about

491
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:35,359
it and thinking well, what if you are stuck in

492
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:37,960
kind of a legacy world. First of all, I understand why,

493
00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:43,200
because trying to change out an entire application that runs

494
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:46,720
a business is an enormously risky proposition. Yeah, and its

495
00:25:46,799 --> 00:25:50,119
expensive too, But I think, honestly, I don't think it's

496
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:52,319
the expense that drives people away from it. Mostly I

497
00:25:52,319 --> 00:25:55,839
think it's the risk, because it's an existential threat if

498
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:59,680
you get it wrong. So improving the legacy app, well, okay,

499
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:02,359
would you want to improve legacy apps? So I made

500
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:05,759
a list of the areas that I had seen that

501
00:26:05,799 --> 00:26:08,079
I thought worked well. Search was very high on the list.

502
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:10,960
A lot of legacy apps have very poorly designed search

503
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:14,359
because it was designed twenty years ago or whatever. And

504
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:16,960
our database technologies are better now we could do full

505
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:19,640
text indexing and all that kind of stuff, where twenty

506
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:23,519
years ago we couldn't. And it surprises me how many

507
00:26:23,519 --> 00:26:27,039
corporate apps still require you to search by entering information

508
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:30,960
in different fields. If I want to search for address,

509
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:33,359
I have to enter something in a field for address,

510
00:26:33,519 --> 00:26:37,799
Whereas the world has gone beyond that, haven't, I mean, everybody.

511
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:40,400
Speaker 1: Just time and have these programmers ever heard of link?

512
00:26:40,759 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 4: Yeah? So or re search is an obvious candidate, and

513
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:48,279
it's not so much just that you change so that

514
00:26:48,319 --> 00:26:51,640
you enter into a Google sell bar. It's more about

515
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:55,720
how you expose the results. Because right now developers just

516
00:26:55,799 --> 00:26:59,799
dumping in a data grid and that's okay actually for

517
00:26:59,839 --> 00:27:04,519
so for some interaction cases, especially if people are going

518
00:27:04,599 --> 00:27:06,559
to kind of sort and massage the data a lot,

519
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:10,680
then data grid's okay to do that. But we've got

520
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:13,599
card views and all the stuff and graphics that we

521
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:14,519
can put in there.

522
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:16,680
Speaker 1: I'm working on an app right now, Billy, where we

523
00:27:16,759 --> 00:27:20,000
leave it up to the user to decide whether they

524
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:21,920
want to see stuff in the grid or in cards.

525
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 4: Oh, that's I'll be interested in the results of that

526
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:26,839
simple And part of it is how well designed are

527
00:27:26,839 --> 00:27:30,599
the cards, of course, But in general, if the cards

528
00:27:30,599 --> 00:27:32,799
are well designed, I find that people tend to prefer that.

529
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:38,359
Because this gets back to some of the neurological things.

530
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:43,279
The part of our brains that works with graphics and

531
00:27:43,319 --> 00:27:48,519
shapes and color is much older in evolutionary terms than

532
00:27:48,559 --> 00:27:51,640
the part that reads and it interprets numbers, and.

533
00:27:52,279 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 1: Certainly that reads spreadsheets. Yeah, that's kind of new.

534
00:27:56,279 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 4: So in essence, there's an ease of absorbing the material

535
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:05,880
when you're leaning on graphics and such. For example, if

536
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:09,079
you've got, oh, you've got five categories of returned results,

537
00:28:09,319 --> 00:28:12,079
and you've got a graphic for each one, the eyes

538
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:14,880
will be able to use that graphic to zero in

539
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:18,240
on the one they want very quickly. And it actually

540
00:28:18,279 --> 00:28:23,160
feels good because anything that helps your brain offload cognitive

541
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:29,119
effort feels good. It's at a subconscious level, but people

542
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:33,720
tend to be attracted to and become attached to those

543
00:28:33,799 --> 00:28:36,519
kind of views if they leverage graphics, well, now, if

544
00:28:36,519 --> 00:28:38,319
they do allows e job and the graphics are just

545
00:28:38,359 --> 00:28:40,880
as hard to figure out as the text, then you

546
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:41,880
don't get any benefits.

547
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: I like the card idea because you know, when you

548
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:47,839
put a border around something, it's a thing. You know,

549
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:51,759
it has a boundary, it's a thing. Whereas it can

550
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:54,920
just be some space around it and it's still a group,

551
00:28:55,039 --> 00:28:57,799
it's still a thing. The line in a grid is

552
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:00,519
much more difficult for the brain to understand, much more,

553
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:01,440
much more.

554
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:02,920
Speaker 2: But aren't you getting to a point here where you're

555
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:04,880
trying to punt on the design and saying let the

556
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:06,680
user define how they want to see things.

557
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: Well, that's yeah, well in this case. In this case,

558
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:12,559
there were users that wanted a table and there were

559
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:15,319
users that wanted cards. So we were we had this

560
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:17,720
you know, design meeting. They were yelling back and forth

561
00:29:17,759 --> 00:29:19,480
and stuff, and I'm like, hey, we can do it.

562
00:29:19,599 --> 00:29:22,279
We just do in a JSON file.

563
00:29:22,559 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be okay.

564
00:29:24,279 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 4: Say, I use that approach quite a lot because you

565
00:29:26,519 --> 00:29:29,920
do get into confrontations typically because the range of users

566
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:32,640
is such that they are advanced users and there are

567
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,680
simpler users. And I really don't like the idea of

568
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:39,119
hamstringing everybody because some power users need some things.

569
00:29:39,359 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, and definitely you get that split between the novice

570
00:29:42,519 --> 00:29:43,960
users that are going to use that out once a

571
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:46,880
week and the person that's in there four out of

572
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:49,799
eight hours of even working day, and they just they

573
00:29:49,799 --> 00:29:51,720
want all the shortcuts. They want to be as efficient

574
00:29:51,759 --> 00:29:53,599
as possible because they're in an out of there so often.

575
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:56,519
Speaker 4: So that's real. That's very smart to do that, Carl.

576
00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:00,000
And because it does short circuit a lot of the resistance,

577
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:03,519
you get to change because there is there is status

578
00:30:03,559 --> 00:30:06,480
quo bias among people that people tend to like what

579
00:30:06,519 --> 00:30:12,799
they're comfortable with, what they're used to, and overcoming that well,

580
00:30:12,839 --> 00:30:14,440
first of all, you have to do some good work

581
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,079
and come up with a good design. Just trying to

582
00:30:17,319 --> 00:30:21,119
make minor changes typically doesn't really work very well to

583
00:30:21,119 --> 00:30:24,200
get those people off the button for the old stuff.

584
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:27,119
But if you come for something really new, then they're

585
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:30,400
more likely to see that and realize that that's better.

586
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:33,799
But yeah, in general, you are going to have in

587
00:30:33,839 --> 00:30:37,680
many cases two groups and you just can't reconcile between

588
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:38,079
the two.

589
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 2: And they're both valuable and important, you know, I would

590
00:30:42,039 --> 00:30:45,240
say occasionally, I've certainly seen apps where nobody spends enough

591
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:47,119
time in it to be good at it, right, where

592
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:50,920
the leadership leading you all the time models what everybody

593
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:52,519
ends up using. Because it's like I go to this

594
00:30:52,559 --> 00:30:54,119
thing once a week, I go into this thing, you

595
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:56,720
know once a month. Nobody's ever going to be.

596
00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:57,119
Speaker 3: Good at it.

597
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, And unfortunately, because there are parts of the app

598
00:31:01,519 --> 00:31:03,640
that are used quite a lot, that's where you tend

599
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:05,960
to put your investment because that's where your payback is.

600
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:08,880
So those parts of the app very often or not

601
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:10,920
as well designed because you just don't have time to

602
00:31:11,359 --> 00:31:11,559
do it.

603
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 2: You can't tune everything up, tune up the thing's going

604
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:14,880
to give you the biggest return.

605
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 1: Do you remember, Billy, And we got to take a break,

606
00:31:17,279 --> 00:31:19,359
so I'll make this quick, but do you remember I

607
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:22,480
wrote this tool for Windows Forms that was sort of

608
00:31:22,559 --> 00:31:27,480
like UI Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert mode levels and you

609
00:31:27,519 --> 00:31:32,839
could tie those to the different you know, visible properties

610
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:36,920
of controls, and so the user could say, I want

611
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:39,480
to be in beginner mode because they're just learning the app,

612
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:41,759
and so it kind of guides them through the easy stuff,

613
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:44,759
going to intermediate shows, a few more features, expert shows,

614
00:31:44,839 --> 00:31:47,440
humor reaches. I really like that, and I've used that

615
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:50,960
metaphor ever since for.

616
00:31:51,279 --> 00:31:53,759
Speaker 4: It's a It's a great metaphor, and it works even

617
00:31:53,759 --> 00:31:56,960
better with modern technologies where you've got dynamic layout. Yeah,

618
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:02,160
that responsive layout. The problem in more static environment slighted

619
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:04,400
Windowsforms was okay, now I'm leaving holes in the screen,

620
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:07,640
and some don't like that, but yeah, I think that's

621
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:11,000
an excellent approach. You just don't want to clutter a

622
00:32:11,039 --> 00:32:13,240
screen with stuff that somebody is not going to use,

623
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:18,000
and so that's one really good architectural way to sort

624
00:32:18,039 --> 00:32:21,920
of give it enough flexibility that you're accommodating a wider range.

625
00:32:22,119 --> 00:32:23,519
Speaker 1: And the one thing that you have to be careful

626
00:32:23,519 --> 00:32:25,960
with with that kids, is that you have to make

627
00:32:26,039 --> 00:32:28,920
the option to go to the next level discoverable enough

628
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:31,039
so that people don't get stuck inside where is all

629
00:32:31,079 --> 00:32:31,640
this stuff?

630
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 4: Yeah? In general, I mean that's that's a great example

631
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:40,559
of configuration. We put a lot of configurability in our apps,

632
00:32:40,839 --> 00:32:44,039
and configurability is one of the ways that you do

633
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:47,680
try to bypass a lot of these blockages, these these

634
00:32:48,279 --> 00:32:51,240
where people are button heads about the way. In fact,

635
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:54,119
I've seen cases where people where a team would thrash

636
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:59,359
for six months over something fundamentally fairly simple y to

637
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:02,880
them both likely, Yeah, stop stop arguing about it.

638
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,079
Speaker 1: Yeah, just Raightbode, it's a radio button.

639
00:33:05,319 --> 00:33:08,279
Speaker 4: So we do a lot of configurability. In fact, I

640
00:33:08,319 --> 00:33:12,440
think a good architecture for applications ought to have some

641
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:15,960
poplines for configurability built into it. That it ought to

642
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:20,000
be really easy to implement configurability in the UI instead

643
00:33:20,039 --> 00:33:22,359
of having to close up some code to do it.

644
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:26,359
I mean, you're in your your little your thing to

645
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:29,720
sort of tag the stuff at what level is an

646
00:33:29,759 --> 00:33:31,279
example of that kind of configurability.

647
00:33:31,279 --> 00:33:32,839
Speaker 1: All right, And with that, we're going to take this

648
00:33:33,079 --> 00:33:35,640
very brief pause for these very important messages. And I'd

649
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:37,039
like to remind you that if you don't want to

650
00:33:37,079 --> 00:33:39,799
hear these messages, you can become a five dollars a

651
00:33:39,799 --> 00:33:43,680
month patron at Patreon dot dot netroocks dot com and

652
00:33:43,799 --> 00:33:46,799
you can get a feed that is ad free. All right,

653
00:33:46,839 --> 00:33:49,000
now here comes the annoying part. We'll be right back.

654
00:33:49,799 --> 00:33:52,279
Did you know you can lift and shift your dot

655
00:33:52,319 --> 00:33:56,440
net framework apps to virtual machines in the cloud. Use

656
00:33:56,480 --> 00:34:00,640
the elastic beanstalk service to easily migrate to Amazon e

657
00:34:00,759 --> 00:34:04,720
C two with little or no changes. Find out more

658
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:13,320
at aws dot Amazon dot com, slash elastic beanstock. And

659
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,360
we're back. It's dot net rock some Carl Franklin's my

660
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,519
friend Richard Campbell. Hey, and we're talking about our friend

661
00:34:19,639 --> 00:34:24,880
Billy Hollis, the right Reverend Billy Hollis, And uh he's

662
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:29,880
got some good ideas about design, about the designed for

663
00:34:30,119 --> 00:34:35,199
legacy systems, and uh yeah, and and all those little things.

664
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 4: Some of the some of the other areas besides search,

665
00:34:38,199 --> 00:34:40,920
data visualization. I mean, we got all this wonderful ability

666
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:45,360
to do data visualization with our modern UI technologies, but

667
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:47,920
how much data visualization do you see in the typical

668
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:50,280
corporate app. I mean they might they might get a

669
00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:52,440
charting package and do a few pot charts in bar

670
00:34:52,599 --> 00:34:56,480
charts and that's about it. Whereas a custom designed data

671
00:34:56,519 --> 00:35:02,760
visualization can sometimes not only speed people up and keep

672
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:06,440
them from making mistakes, but it can also communicate to

673
00:35:06,519 --> 00:35:10,079
the user, Hey, I understand where you live and work,

674
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:15,599
and I've developed this software for you. They tend to

675
00:35:15,679 --> 00:35:23,480
have an unconscious favorable understanding of what you do if

676
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:26,280
you accommodate them in those kinds of boys. So data

677
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:29,960
visualization is very underused. I mean I see dashboards and

678
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:33,639
they've just got the most common looking stuff. It's just

679
00:35:33,679 --> 00:35:35,039
a whole bunch of line charts.

680
00:35:35,039 --> 00:35:37,199
Speaker 1: From the fact we were done with pie charts. Apparently

681
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:38,599
pie charts haven't died yet.

682
00:35:38,679 --> 00:35:40,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, well pi charts were always bad.

683
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:45,119
Speaker 4: Yeah, but somebody wants a dashboard. Somebody, some decision maker

684
00:35:45,119 --> 00:35:46,800
wants more. Okay, we do a dashboard. Now what do

685
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:48,880
we put on it? Well, they don't think about that,

686
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:52,679
and that's really too bad because dashboards, by their nature,

687
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:54,719
ought to be very dynamic. You ought to be able

688
00:35:54,719 --> 00:35:56,719
to do new wiges for a dashboarding time you want.

689
00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:00,519
And and when I've seen that when companies adopted that

690
00:36:00,519 --> 00:36:03,360
at acute. Now you get some really really useful dashboards,

691
00:36:03,559 --> 00:36:06,840
things that contain Oh okay, here's the top five things

692
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:09,920
that you need to worry about right now, you know.

693
00:36:10,599 --> 00:36:13,159
Speaker 2: Hell, And that's where visualization is like the sort of

694
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:15,760
up into the right graph because okay, if but it's

695
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:17,599
going up to right, good things around them, it's going

696
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:20,320
down to the right, it's bad thing happening.

697
00:36:22,039 --> 00:36:25,039
Speaker 4: But certainly data visualization is one of those design things

698
00:36:25,079 --> 00:36:27,480
that you have to take into account. Sort of a

699
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:29,679
typical you have to do some sketching. Really, if you're

700
00:36:29,679 --> 00:36:31,559
going to do a good data visualization, you start with

701
00:36:31,599 --> 00:36:32,280
pencil and paper.

702
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:35,079
Speaker 2: Do you like tools like Pigma? Like where do you

703
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:36,679
sketch up your your app?

704
00:36:38,519 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 4: I'm fine with almost any wireframing tool, and Figma is

705
00:36:42,559 --> 00:36:46,960
very popular right now. My partner Gary Bailey, who's does

706
00:36:47,039 --> 00:36:50,000
quite a lot of that work. In our case, locks

707
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:52,840
of Balthsenic and I think they're like that just for

708
00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:57,679
Balsenic over Pigma. Psychologically, Balthsenic looks like a sketch and

709
00:36:57,679 --> 00:37:01,079
Figma does not. And when I takes people, I want

710
00:37:01,079 --> 00:37:03,239
them to critique them. What if they look like a sketch?

711
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:05,880
Psychologically they go, oh, yeah, I guess it's just an idea.

712
00:37:06,199 --> 00:37:07,719
Figma looks more like a finishing.

713
00:37:07,519 --> 00:37:09,119
Speaker 1: For pollsamic with a queue.

714
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 4: So I'm not as fond of Pigma as a lot

715
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:14,519
of people are. But what Pigma does do, and I

716
00:37:14,519 --> 00:37:16,480
think the reason why a lot of web designed kind

717
00:37:16,519 --> 00:37:19,159
of people take to it is you do get something

718
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:23,280
that's very representative of what's actually going to be put

719
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:25,920
on the page, whereas balsamic does not do that. And

720
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:29,400
since those people are more concerned with the esthetics and

721
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:32,920
the visual stuff, Figma tends to be the tool that

722
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:35,280
they go to. But the basic idea for all of

723
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:38,360
these is don't start with them. Don't walk up to

724
00:37:38,599 --> 00:37:42,159
an electronic tool to design your screens. Get a pencil

725
00:37:42,159 --> 00:37:44,440
on paper, man. Go out there and think about how

726
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:46,360
that thing's going to be laid out, and try two

727
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:49,239
or three or four different ideas for how you do

728
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:50,639
it so you can compare them.

729
00:37:50,639 --> 00:37:53,199
Speaker 2: Sorry, pencil, paper, pencil.

730
00:37:54,039 --> 00:37:57,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, that technology has been around for two thousand years now.

731
00:37:57,360 --> 00:38:05,840
Speaker 1: Random access. I like the resolution, great battery life ever run,

732
00:38:07,199 --> 00:38:10,599
and the storage capacity that's always believer in the whiteboard too.

733
00:38:10,679 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 4: That yeah. Basically, when when I teach classes on how

734
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:18,920
to do design for to mostly to developer teams. I

735
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:23,039
emphasize use any media you want as long as it's blank.

736
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:28,840
Don't do lined paper that flips and switches in your head.

737
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:31,280
Speaker 1: And when you're done with your design on the whiteboard,

738
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:32,000
take a picture.

739
00:38:32,159 --> 00:38:32,679
Speaker 4: Take a picture.

740
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:34,840
Speaker 1: Just guess what the cleaning crew is coming in and

741
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:36,000
it's going to be tomorrow.

742
00:38:36,559 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 4: Yeah. So, especially collaborative de nown with two or three people,

743
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:42,000
whiteboards work work really well. But you know, one of

744
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:45,519
the options that that has been particularly popular among the

745
00:38:45,559 --> 00:38:48,239
people that that I've worked with in recent years is

746
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:52,639
butcher paper. Butcher paper amount, I think, well, it comes

747
00:38:52,639 --> 00:38:55,559
in rolls. So you think about the tables that are

748
00:38:55,599 --> 00:38:58,960
in the typical conference room, unroll about six or eight

749
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:00,320
feet a butcher paper.

750
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:01,800
Speaker 2: Everybody got a corner.

751
00:39:01,679 --> 00:39:05,079
Speaker 4: Everybody's got a piece of it, and and everybody kind

752
00:39:05,079 --> 00:39:07,880
of so that that gets past the thing of see,

753
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:09,800
some people are like to kind of sit back and

754
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:13,360
let other people do all work, all the sketching. So now, okay,

755
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:16,119
you got your piece, don't tell me what you want

756
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:18,960
me to sketch. Go ahead and sketch it yourself. And

757
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:21,519
then when you when you want to store the finished drawings,

758
00:39:21,519 --> 00:39:23,480
you roll them up, put a rubber band around.

759
00:39:23,519 --> 00:39:26,480
Speaker 1: Now, are you talking about the light green butcher paper

760
00:39:26,599 --> 00:39:33,039
or the barbecue but wrapping stuff? Because I figured that's

761
00:39:33,039 --> 00:39:35,400
what you would pick, is the pink paper.

762
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:38,840
Speaker 4: It's the pink pat No, no, no, you want white paper. Yeah,

763
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:43,400
you don't want any psychological whatever predisposing people in any direction.

764
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:45,880
Why is the best color that we can We can

765
00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:48,480
put a link for the show in the product I

766
00:39:48,599 --> 00:39:50,719
use on Amazon if you like an Amazon link that

767
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:52,719
reclinds to the roll of butcher paper. It's about one

768
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:56,000
hundred and fifty feet and I think about fourteen inches wide.

769
00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:58,599
That's great, And so yeah, that that's a really good,

770
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:03,880
really good option and for teams. But yeah, I like

771
00:40:04,039 --> 00:40:06,840
a lot of whiteboards, especially in the early stages where

772
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:08,679
you're trying to figure out a little bit more about

773
00:40:08,679 --> 00:40:11,639
the flow. But yeah, there are lots of ways to

774
00:40:11,679 --> 00:40:14,760
do it as long as you use blank media and pencils.

775
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:18,119
Colored pencils are nice, yeah, and colored markers are nice.

776
00:40:18,119 --> 00:40:19,840
They you emphasize some things.

777
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:21,239
Speaker 2: But blank paper very good.

778
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:24,519
Speaker 1: And again take pictures of it and end up in

779
00:40:24,559 --> 00:40:25,480
the garbage someday.

780
00:40:26,159 --> 00:40:28,320
Speaker 2: Well, like I said, it rolls back up again so

781
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:30,400
you can you can keep it compact.

782
00:40:30,639 --> 00:40:32,599
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the not that's one of the reasons I

783
00:40:32,599 --> 00:40:34,719
love butchet paper easy to pack up and take home

784
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:37,480
and and unroll when I need it. So yeah, that

785
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:40,880
has worked really well, and I I don't think I've

786
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:43,280
ever had a team that used it before I came in,

787
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:44,800
but they all like it after it.

788
00:40:45,079 --> 00:40:47,760
Speaker 1: I tried pizza boxes once but the pencils didn't work

789
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:49,039
in the three spots and.

790
00:40:49,119 --> 00:40:52,840
Speaker 4: They so, yeah, you have to do a lot of

791
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:57,320
sketching for data visualization. And then the other area that

792
00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:01,119
that for legacy apps. I tend to suggest to people

793
00:41:02,039 --> 00:41:06,519
is to do some work on workflow because you think

794
00:41:06,519 --> 00:41:09,320
about these apps that have been developed twenty fifteen, twenty

795
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:15,639
years ago, they tended to have that model of basically,

796
00:41:15,679 --> 00:41:19,960
the app replicates what's in the database, the menu replicates

797
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:22,400
what's in the database. There's a lot of crud screens.

798
00:41:22,599 --> 00:41:25,840
Getting data in and out is the primary thing that

799
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:29,480
the app is doing. So you think about workflow with

800
00:41:29,559 --> 00:41:32,199
an app like that, you've got five steps in a workflow,

801
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:34,360
you probably have to go to five different places in

802
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:38,280
the app to do it. And understand that that we're

803
00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:43,000
talking about those principles, those cognitive etc. Principles. One of

804
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:47,440
the basic standard principles is that short term memory is

805
00:41:47,519 --> 00:41:51,239
limited and cognitive effort is limited. You stress people out

806
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:54,719
if you make them think too much. So think about

807
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:58,000
now workflow and a legacy app. If you've got to

808
00:41:58,119 --> 00:42:01,000
bounce around to five different places to do steps, you're

809
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:04,840
having to store in your short term memory where you

810
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:07,960
are and what you have to do next, and expend

811
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:09,960
the cognitive effort to kind of remember where all these

812
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:14,119
things are. Well, leave that in place, don't take away

813
00:42:14,159 --> 00:42:16,800
any of those things, but you can develop an ad

814
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:20,519
on that steps people through the steps and link straight

815
00:42:20,599 --> 00:42:23,079
to the thing that they need to do and tracks

816
00:42:23,079 --> 00:42:23,599
where they are.

817
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:26,519
Speaker 1: You do stand up comedy too right? I do because

818
00:42:26,559 --> 00:42:28,639
I feel a routine coming on. You know, you could

819
00:42:28,679 --> 00:42:32,239
mimic Jeff Foxworthy. You might have bad design if if

820
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:36,960
if you find yourself pulling up notepad between screen A

821
00:42:37,239 --> 00:42:40,000
and screen B, you might have bad design.

822
00:42:42,039 --> 00:42:44,599
Speaker 4: And I actually did say I was doing user observation

823
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:48,280
and saw a woman she would work with a record

824
00:42:48,599 --> 00:42:52,280
and write down the non digit ID on her pad

825
00:42:53,639 --> 00:42:55,840
so that she could come back to it later what

826
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:59,679
she was doing on the fly. Was constructing a recently

827
00:42:59,880 --> 00:43:04,719
U used list on paper, right, and what man, let's

828
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:06,639
let the computer keep up with that. Why are we

829
00:43:06,679 --> 00:43:07,519
making her do it?

830
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 1: At least let them use the clipboard for crying out.

831
00:43:12,599 --> 00:43:15,320
Speaker 4: So, yeah, workflow is a great way to add a

832
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:18,199
lot of value. Think about this. If you help people

833
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:21,239
with workflow, not only do you reduce training for people

834
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:23,800
coming in because they can walk through all the steps,

835
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:29,960
but you also prevent errors because most old applications don't

836
00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:31,760
have guardrails to keep you from doing things.

837
00:43:31,639 --> 00:43:32,159
Speaker 3: Out of order.

838
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:35,079
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you could they just fail, Yeah.

839
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 4: They just mess up. And so if you build a

840
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:40,480
separate thing for workflow, you can build those guardrails in

841
00:43:40,599 --> 00:43:43,320
so that don't do step three before you've done step two.

842
00:43:43,679 --> 00:43:45,519
Speaker 2: I've been a big there's been a few piece of

843
00:43:45,559 --> 00:43:49,360
software now I've found that as they build a breadcrumb

844
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:51,239
trail at the top of the screen below the menu

845
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:53,159
of you went here, and then you went here, and

846
00:43:53,159 --> 00:43:55,599
you went here, and you here, And I found myself

847
00:43:55,599 --> 00:43:58,840
occasionally seeing that bricko trails jump back four steps. Yeah, yeah,

848
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:01,239
make a change, yeah, you know, be able to get

849
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:01,960
back down again.

850
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 4: And then what does that what kind of ripple effect

851
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:06,280
does that have so you can design extra pieces to

852
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:08,199
take that into account, and people love that stuff.

853
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:09,159
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

854
00:44:09,159 --> 00:44:11,159
Speaker 2: The other one that I've always delighted is don't lose

855
00:44:11,159 --> 00:44:13,480
my work. Like I typed a bunch of stuff in,

856
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:16,480
then something failed and so forth, and then you get

857
00:44:16,519 --> 00:44:18,039
back there. It's like after this over and you get

858
00:44:18,079 --> 00:44:19,159
back there and so oh it's still there.

859
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:23,960
Speaker 4: I am going to give the Windows team a thumbs

860
00:44:24,039 --> 00:44:29,039
up on something in that area, because number one, I

861
00:44:29,039 --> 00:44:33,719
don't lock the idea that they update and reboot so much. Yep, Okay,

862
00:44:34,039 --> 00:44:36,320
they promised us a long time ago they wouldn't do that,

863
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:38,920
can't do it, and now they can't figure it out.

864
00:44:39,119 --> 00:44:42,960
But what they did figure out is that pretty much

865
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:45,639
any app that they controlled, they've got ways to save

866
00:44:45,679 --> 00:44:48,360
the state. Even notepad no nopad used to just man,

867
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:51,239
if you reboot it after an update, whatever was in

868
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:52,280
that notepad was gone.

869
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:56,960
Speaker 2: Well lock the update, block the reboot, right, So yeah,

870
00:44:57,440 --> 00:44:58,480
so so.

871
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 1: They when there's eleven they added the memory tabs.

872
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:04,119
Speaker 4: But yeah, well then it works on THEE when just

873
00:45:04,199 --> 00:45:07,519
ten updates as well. That if it now nowadays, I

874
00:45:07,519 --> 00:45:10,360
guess they backport it or something. But now if they

875
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:13,039
if they update, do a forced update because of a

876
00:45:14,119 --> 00:45:16,679
force reboot because of an update, then when I come back,

877
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:21,880
all my notepads are back, they're fine, And thank you Microsoft.

878
00:45:22,159 --> 00:45:23,679
Speaker 2: A good feature, and it's a great thing to think

879
00:45:23,679 --> 00:45:26,000
about in your software too. Like you talk about, yeah,

880
00:45:26,039 --> 00:45:29,199
design that pays, it's like how much work saved that way?

881
00:45:29,199 --> 00:45:33,039
How much frustration saved that way? They're not that much code.

882
00:45:33,119 --> 00:45:35,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if if you're doing let's say a Blazer

883
00:45:35,559 --> 00:45:39,639
server application, you can use protected browser storage anytimes somebody

884
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:42,519
mutates the state, just save that to protect your browser

885
00:45:42,559 --> 00:45:45,119
storage and bring it back when you load up if

886
00:45:45,199 --> 00:45:47,599
it's there. That's one of the or give the give

887
00:45:47,639 --> 00:45:50,000
them the hey, last time you were working on this,

888
00:45:50,119 --> 00:45:51,639
do you want to resume where you left off. You

889
00:45:51,639 --> 00:45:53,320
can even bring them to the page they were on

890
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:55,480
and the data that was on that page.

891
00:45:55,599 --> 00:45:57,639
Speaker 4: Like yeah, well, Carl, I think you and I tend

892
00:45:57,639 --> 00:45:59,639
to be tuned into that because we started out in

893
00:46:00,159 --> 00:46:03,719
desktop native, where having a lot of state is pretty easy,

894
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:07,000
and so you get accustomed to leverage again. Whereas people

895
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:11,039
that begin doing stateless web applications, which kind of the

896
00:46:11,039 --> 00:46:13,840
browser requires a certain amount of state listness, they don't

897
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:15,679
tend to leaver reage state as much. They just don't

898
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:18,639
tend to think that way, and so yeah, they should.

899
00:46:19,079 --> 00:46:22,000
We've got ways of doing the state now, and they

900
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:24,920
need to kind of twist their mentality because that is

901
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:26,880
such a useful thing for the user.

902
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:31,119
Speaker 1: Sure is. Yeah, And the application state talks that I

903
00:46:31,159 --> 00:46:34,039
do and Blazer are still the most popular ones because

904
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:37,719
you know, people coming from different web technologies, that's a

905
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:41,639
thing that they're not used to. Yeah, in memory state.

906
00:46:41,639 --> 00:46:46,159
Speaker 4: And another thing about all sort of connected to all

907
00:46:46,159 --> 00:46:48,280
the stuff we're doing. We're talking about with legacy apps

908
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:53,760
and getting a workflow right and such is something that

909
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:56,400
I noticed a couple of years ago, and now that

910
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:58,639
I'm attuned to it, You know how it is, You

911
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:01,079
notice something once and then you start seeing it in

912
00:47:01,159 --> 00:47:05,320
other places. And I've seen, oh at least six or

913
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:12,159
eight examples now of this. I struggled to explain it

914
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:17,199
really concisely, but I'll try. I call it generational turnover

915
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:22,039
because you think about and it's unique to this point

916
00:47:22,559 --> 00:47:26,320
in time because we've all been in the industry long

917
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:29,880
enough that we know we went through that period when

918
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:32,639
a lot of businesses were automating. They were switching from

919
00:47:32,679 --> 00:47:36,840
basically paper into computers for the first time, typically very

920
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:40,719
data related apps. I did my first one in probably

921
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:45,719
nineteen seventy nine, and of course it really picked up

922
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:48,880
steam in the mid eighties, and by the mid nineties

923
00:47:49,079 --> 00:47:51,599
you pretty much had to be automated or you weren't

924
00:47:51,599 --> 00:47:55,360
competitive as a business anymore. But you think about how

925
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:57,639
those apps were done. I mean, we didn't have the

926
00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:01,480
computing power, or the expertise or the money to build

927
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:03,440
what we would now call it an enterprise app. And

928
00:48:03,519 --> 00:48:06,880
most of these companies are pretty small anyway. So what

929
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:09,760
got built, well, a piece of the app that you

930
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:11,719
built a piece of the business, an app for that,

931
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:15,840
and then maybe another piece for another app for another

932
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:19,480
piece of the business. And so the systems that came

933
00:48:19,519 --> 00:48:21,840
out of that in the nineties and early two thousands

934
00:48:22,039 --> 00:48:28,239
tended to be pretty granular, data oriented pieces. Everything was

935
00:48:28,239 --> 00:48:32,519
done kind of piecemeal. How did the business function? Somebody

936
00:48:32,559 --> 00:48:35,119
in that business, typically a small number of people, knew

937
00:48:35,119 --> 00:48:37,719
how to take all of those things and implement the

938
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:40,119
real workflow in the businesses. And we talked about four

939
00:48:40,239 --> 00:48:42,719
They were holding the workflow in their head. They knew

940
00:48:42,719 --> 00:48:44,639
when to move from app to app, and they knew

941
00:48:44,679 --> 00:48:47,480
all the domain knowledge to know when to bypass the

942
00:48:47,519 --> 00:48:50,039
app or get around limitations in the app. They knew

943
00:48:50,039 --> 00:48:53,960
all of that stuff. Most small to medium businesses had

944
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:57,119
that cadre of people. If they were successful, that probably

945
00:48:57,199 --> 00:49:00,320
meant that they treated those people pretty well and they

946
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:03,360
hung around for a long long time. Let's do some math.

947
00:49:04,719 --> 00:49:08,920
If a business automated in nineteen ninety that way, and

948
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:10,960
they've got people that know how to make all this

949
00:49:11,079 --> 00:49:14,360
current stuff work, but that means that there's a whole

950
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:18,559
lot of information in their head that's required to make

951
00:49:18,599 --> 00:49:20,960
it work. If they were thirty, let's say thirty years

952
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:25,400
old in nineteen ninety, how old are they today? There

953
00:49:25,400 --> 00:49:30,480
are sixty four I've seen in half a dozen plus

954
00:49:30,559 --> 00:49:35,800
businesses a small group of people who are key to

955
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:39,559
the operation of the business that are all approaching retirement

956
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:40,960
at the same time.

957
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:41,719
Speaker 1: Wow.

958
00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:44,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of skill about to walk out there.

959
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:47,039
Speaker 4: There's a lot of people walk yeah. I mean these

960
00:49:47,039 --> 00:49:48,639
people are going to go to a retirement party one

961
00:49:48,679 --> 00:49:51,360
day and then that expertise walks out the door that

962
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:52,280
night and doesn't come back.

963
00:49:52,599 --> 00:49:56,199
Speaker 1: And this the millennials will take over and write it

964
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:57,119
on the lampstade.

965
00:49:57,239 --> 00:50:04,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, well manh sorry, it's good. Even the best motivated

966
00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:06,760
millennial is going to come in. It would take them

967
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:09,920
years to build up all that domain knowledge to do this,

968
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:13,320
and the business is going to take some pretty serious

969
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:16,840
hits if you don't prepare for this. So a couple

970
00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:19,239
of our clients, that's actually the project we were doing

971
00:50:19,679 --> 00:50:23,360
was taking this string of things that were all built

972
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:26,760
separately in that the people helped knew how to how

973
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:30,000
to put together, and replacing that with what you would

974
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:35,320
call an enterprise system. Even though I mean, I mean

975
00:50:35,639 --> 00:50:38,840
the people at SAP truck tell you that they can

976
00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:41,239
do this, and for some businesses, I think they probably

977
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:44,599
can if the business is data and accounting driven enough.

978
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:48,760
But if you've got proprietary business processes, then now you've

979
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:50,679
got a whole lot of work to do it. You

980
00:50:50,679 --> 00:50:54,320
can either hammer SAP into doing it, which is very expensive,

981
00:50:54,559 --> 00:50:58,599
or you can go get somebody to write the replacement system,

982
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:01,400
which is is better if you do it right, but

983
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:04,960
carries a lot of risk. But businesses need to be

984
00:51:05,039 --> 00:51:08,239
sens does this. I was doing that session on design

985
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:12,760
for legacy apps at a conference and talk a little

986
00:51:12,760 --> 00:51:16,119
bit about that because see The idea is you stretch

987
00:51:16,159 --> 00:51:18,639
the legacy app too far. There's a whole lot of

988
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:21,760
risk involved there with them, and there are various risks

989
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:24,199
with the legacy apps being stretched too far, but one

990
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:27,639
of them is generational turnover. And I kind of went

991
00:51:27,679 --> 00:51:29,360
through with him about the same thing I just with

992
00:51:29,519 --> 00:51:31,440
it with you. I had a guy come up to

993
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:34,840
me after the session and he said, the insights you

994
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:37,840
just gave me is worth more than I paid to

995
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:40,320
come to this conference. He's going to go back and

996
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:45,000
start doing checking things out. Who are these people that

997
00:51:45,039 --> 00:51:49,199
the business depends on that maybe the top executives don't

998
00:51:49,199 --> 00:51:52,559
even know who they are, and how close are they

999
00:51:52,559 --> 00:51:55,400
getting to retirement? And what's our plan for dealing with it?

1000
00:51:55,840 --> 00:51:57,519
Are we going to create a new app? Are we

1001
00:51:57,559 --> 00:52:01,039
going to try to transplant that expertise into other heads?

1002
00:52:00,039 --> 00:52:04,400
It's it's solved in a lot of different ways, but

1003
00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:07,280
a lot of small even up to pretty large businesses.

1004
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:10,280
Because one of the businesses we did this for there

1005
00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:13,880
is a multi billion dollar business with five factories. So

1006
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:18,480
people ought to just do a checklist thing in your business?

1007
00:52:18,719 --> 00:52:20,960
Are you in that boat? Because a lot of businesses

1008
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:23,960
are I talk to an executive for a large bank.

1009
00:52:24,559 --> 00:52:26,920
That is, they've got all these technologies and all the

1010
00:52:26,920 --> 00:52:30,039
people who know how to make them work. They've got

1011
00:52:30,079 --> 00:52:33,079
to either change out the technologies or get somebody new

1012
00:52:33,119 --> 00:52:35,639
to keep them running, right, because those people are just

1013
00:52:35,639 --> 00:52:36,360
about to retire.

1014
00:52:36,679 --> 00:52:39,119
Speaker 1: I mean, we're all older people here, so and I'm

1015
00:52:39,119 --> 00:52:41,599
not there's no secret, right, we've been around a while.

1016
00:52:42,519 --> 00:52:46,000
Have you ever encountered somebody who says, you know, we're

1017
00:52:46,039 --> 00:52:49,840
going to abandon the whole application idea in favor of

1018
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:54,280
a series of TikTok videos.

1019
00:52:54,519 --> 00:52:56,400
Speaker 4: I don't think I've ever heard anything.

1020
00:52:56,039 --> 00:52:59,280
Speaker 1: That ridiculous it's coming.

1021
00:52:59,119 --> 00:53:01,480
Speaker 4: But way it probably is.

1022
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 2: I mean there's another aspect of this, which is that

1023
00:53:04,559 --> 00:53:07,159
the folks that have been doing this, operating that software

1024
00:53:07,159 --> 00:53:10,440
for a while are used to the foibles, used to

1025
00:53:10,559 --> 00:53:14,239
the problems, yeah, the bad ux of it. Yeah, and

1026
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:17,039
that new folks coming in are going to have a

1027
00:53:17,119 --> 00:53:20,639
demand to This doesn't have to suck right like that,

1028
00:53:20,719 --> 00:53:21,599
This could be better.

1029
00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:24,800
Speaker 4: Yeah. You think about, say, a twenty four year old

1030
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:27,159
coming in for their first job looking at one of

1031
00:53:27,199 --> 00:53:31,360
these twenty five year old corporate apps, and they sit

1032
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:33,280
down the first day in front of that thing. What

1033
00:53:33,320 --> 00:53:37,039
does that do to their connection to the company they

1034
00:53:37,079 --> 00:53:39,360
just started working for. I mean they don't even they

1035
00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:41,679
don't even own a laptop or a desktop. All they

1036
00:53:41,679 --> 00:53:44,960
know is tablets or whatever. Yeah, the emotional impact of

1037
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:47,000
that is not to be discounted.

1038
00:53:47,119 --> 00:53:47,960
Speaker 1: Nope, sure thing.

1039
00:53:48,119 --> 00:53:51,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting point in evolution, and it's the

1040
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:53,920
demand is going to get huge as we lose this

1041
00:53:54,159 --> 00:53:55,519
knowledge base walking to the door.

1042
00:53:55,760 --> 00:53:58,639
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there is the problem is there's just no

1043
00:53:58,719 --> 00:54:01,920
clean way to do it. To solve this problem. I mean,

1044
00:54:02,119 --> 00:54:05,480
we went into a multi billion dollar company and architected

1045
00:54:05,599 --> 00:54:12,960
everything in their production process, from forecasting they needed through

1046
00:54:13,079 --> 00:54:17,119
the entire supply chain to scheduling workers in the factories.

1047
00:54:18,039 --> 00:54:23,320
And I don't want to sound arrogant and entitle here,

1048
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:25,920
but the number of teams that can go in and

1049
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:30,320
do that there just aren't that many. They're just are not.

1050
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:34,800
So the risk is very, very high when you pick

1051
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:38,239
a team to do that. And so I don't like

1052
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:43,119
being in these decision makers shoes because it's very career

1053
00:54:43,119 --> 00:54:46,639
affecting if they get it wrong. And both in I mean,

1054
00:54:46,679 --> 00:54:50,800
we've talked various times on donet Rocks about the limitation

1055
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:53,039
of design talent. We don't have enough. We have that

1056
00:54:53,159 --> 00:54:56,280
visual design talent, but the interaction design talent and the

1057
00:54:56,320 --> 00:54:59,599
other types of design talent are pretty short. But as

1058
00:54:59,599 --> 00:55:02,719
I mentioned and earlier, the limitation on enterprise architecture is

1059
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:08,760
really high to if you're going to do enterprise level

1060
00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:14,719
workflow the architecture for that. I've done it, and I

1061
00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:18,360
know what the architecture involves, and I'm going to be honest.

1062
00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:21,920
The average person, even a large company with architect in

1063
00:55:21,960 --> 00:55:24,880
their title, even enterprise architect in their title, are not

1064
00:55:25,039 --> 00:55:28,840
up to doing it. I don't mean to sound arrogant

1065
00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:31,360
about it, but they're just not. I've talked to these people.

1066
00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:34,719
Speaker 1: So basically what you're saying is most architects are full of.

1067
00:55:38,920 --> 00:55:41,760
Speaker 4: One of the large banks, a different I've talked about

1068
00:55:41,760 --> 00:55:46,840
before has over two thousand people in their technical area

1069
00:55:47,119 --> 00:55:51,559
with the word architect in their top on their business card.

1070
00:55:51,719 --> 00:55:53,280
How many of those people are actually architects?

1071
00:55:53,320 --> 00:55:55,639
Speaker 1: You suppose? Well, how many can actually do the work?

1072
00:55:55,679 --> 00:55:57,000
Speaker 4: How many can actually do the work.

1073
00:55:57,199 --> 00:55:59,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a different thing, but you know, again, the

1074
00:55:59,519 --> 00:56:01,280
titles are one thing, works another.

1075
00:56:01,599 --> 00:56:05,159
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, sure, I would like to apologize to

1076
00:56:05,199 --> 00:56:07,719
all the architects that listen to dot net rocks. That

1077
00:56:07,880 --> 00:56:10,400
wasn't talking about you. We're all cool here, right, yeah.

1078
00:56:10,159 --> 00:56:13,400
Speaker 4: Well, of course the best architects, of course they listen.

1079
00:56:13,599 --> 00:56:16,599
Speaker 1: To do well, you're absolutely right self selection, right.

1080
00:56:16,519 --> 00:56:18,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, so there, you know, we've got a filter there,

1081
00:56:18,719 --> 00:56:22,159
but the number who are really good at it, it's

1082
00:56:22,559 --> 00:56:25,960
I'll see this, for example, in the proliferation of micro services.

1083
00:56:26,320 --> 00:56:28,559
Our services are a good solution for some places, but

1084
00:56:28,599 --> 00:56:30,599
in a lot of cases they're using this excuse for

1085
00:56:30,679 --> 00:56:33,239
not doing architecture. It's just oh, we won't do we

1086
00:56:33,280 --> 00:56:36,760
won't do achitecture, We'll just do you the little things

1087
00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:37,480
all over the place.

1088
00:56:37,599 --> 00:56:39,559
Speaker 1: Billy, you just blew my mind. I mean, we've been

1089
00:56:39,599 --> 00:56:43,679
struggling with this whole micro services versus the you know,

1090
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:48,639
the monolith, the modular monolith thing for what a couple

1091
00:56:48,639 --> 00:56:50,960
of years now, because people who went down the micro

1092
00:56:51,039 --> 00:56:54,679
services road got disillusioned with it. And you just nailed

1093
00:56:54,679 --> 00:56:56,480
it on the head people that some people that do

1094
00:56:56,559 --> 00:57:01,559
microservice is an excuse to not do proper architecture up front.

1095
00:57:01,719 --> 00:57:04,559
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, it's one of my one of my most

1096
00:57:04,599 --> 00:57:08,679
popular slides these days is uh, you know the distracted

1097
00:57:08,719 --> 00:57:09,400
boyfriend me.

1098
00:57:10,079 --> 00:57:13,360
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, right, So boyd.

1099
00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:15,800
Speaker 4: He's got his girlfriend there, but he's looking over his

1100
00:57:15,800 --> 00:57:18,760
shoulder up and he's walking with But I did one

1101
00:57:18,840 --> 00:57:21,719
of those, and the girl walking away is labeled with

1102
00:57:22,079 --> 00:57:27,599
writing code and his girlfriend is labeled with architecture ux

1103
00:57:27,719 --> 00:57:33,000
design talking to users because developers blow that stuff off.

1104
00:57:33,079 --> 00:57:35,000
Speaker 1: And she's looking at him like, I'm going to give

1105
00:57:35,039 --> 00:57:36,239
you such a smack.

1106
00:57:36,079 --> 00:57:41,840
Speaker 4: I'm gonna So that kind of captures the psychology. We

1107
00:57:41,880 --> 00:57:43,679
should probably put a link up for that.

1108
00:57:43,679 --> 00:57:45,280
Speaker 1: That's really good, yes, and that to.

1109
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:47,719
Speaker 4: Us that slide too, it's popular, very good.

1110
00:57:47,760 --> 00:57:49,559
Speaker 1: So what's next for you, Billy? What do you want to.

1111
00:57:49,960 --> 00:57:52,920
Speaker 4: Well, I have a project that I'm starting on to

1112
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:57,119
do kind of a big chunk of an application, but

1113
00:57:57,159 --> 00:57:59,840
it isn't replacing an entire one entire one in some

1114
00:58:00,119 --> 00:58:02,840
in the engineering space, and I'm looking forward to that.

1115
00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:05,719
That's that's some interesting new stuff. I really like the

1116
00:58:05,719 --> 00:58:07,719
people that I'm that I'm starting to work with too,

1117
00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:12,559
and and so that is kind of a modest sized project.

1118
00:58:12,559 --> 00:58:15,079
It isn't as big as the ones that I normally do.

1119
00:58:16,159 --> 00:58:19,639
And then I am in general moving toward smaller projects.

1120
00:58:20,119 --> 00:58:24,280
And I mean, I don't know how many people really

1121
00:58:24,320 --> 00:58:27,960
realize how old I am. But I'm reaching the point

1122
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:32,920
where I won't be doing the large projects that much longer.

1123
00:58:33,920 --> 00:58:36,119
And what I found out. You know, I've talked to

1124
00:58:36,119 --> 00:58:39,159
people at conferences sometimes will repeats over the years, and

1125
00:58:39,199 --> 00:58:40,960
they go, yeah, we'd like to bring you in, but

1126
00:58:41,119 --> 00:58:43,000
you know, we haven't gotten our ducks in a row

1127
00:58:43,159 --> 00:58:46,239
or whatever. Folks, you're running out.

1128
00:58:46,079 --> 00:58:52,800
Speaker 5: Of time that front porch and that picture, and it's

1129
00:58:52,840 --> 00:58:55,800
the dead line. It's it's the deadlines that I'm ready

1130
00:58:55,840 --> 00:58:58,280
to kind of move past. So I expect to be

1131
00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:00,519
doing still some of the large projects the next year

1132
00:59:00,599 --> 00:59:02,760
or two, and then after that I'm going to move

1133
00:59:02,760 --> 00:59:05,159
to smaller projects for another year or two, and then

1134
00:59:05,920 --> 00:59:08,559
I mean I will never stop working, but getting on

1135
00:59:08,599 --> 00:59:11,480
the planes and going out and seeing people and taking

1136
00:59:11,559 --> 00:59:17,400
control taking command of a redesigned project, which again, the

1137
00:59:17,480 --> 00:59:22,559
supply of people who can do that is just critically short.

1138
00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:26,960
I mean, look, you guys have been in one of

1139
00:59:26,960 --> 00:59:30,880
the most prestigious communities in the Microsoft space for almost

1140
00:59:30,880 --> 00:59:34,039
as long as I have the Regional director community. How

1141
00:59:34,079 --> 00:59:36,519
many of those guys, and most of those guys have

1142
00:59:36,719 --> 00:59:40,360
that special capability to get in front of a group

1143
00:59:40,400 --> 00:59:44,440
that includes CEOs or whoever high level people.

1144
00:59:44,199 --> 00:59:48,599
Speaker 4: And facilitate the way through to a solution. I mean,

1145
00:59:48,639 --> 00:59:51,119
you talk about some of the contentious issues there, Carl,

1146
00:59:51,280 --> 00:59:53,920
some of the things that come up trying to arrive

1147
00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:56,760
at a solution that everybody's going to be happy. A

1148
00:59:56,800 --> 00:59:59,360
big chunk of my work over the last five years

1149
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:03,159
has been serving in that role with companies that got

1150
01:00:03,199 --> 01:00:06,719
stuck in one way or nothing, that are thrashing or whatever,

1151
01:00:07,119 --> 01:00:09,519
because as an outsider, you can come in and you

1152
01:00:09,559 --> 01:00:11,800
can kind of it doesn't bother you as much to

1153
01:00:11,800 --> 01:00:13,400
make people mad because.

1154
01:00:13,480 --> 01:00:15,920
Speaker 1: Right, and plus you have no you have no skin

1155
01:00:15,960 --> 01:00:18,159
in the game, right, right, you're getting paid a rate,

1156
01:00:18,679 --> 01:00:20,239
so for your authentic I.

1157
01:00:20,199 --> 01:00:22,719
Speaker 4: Expect to keep doing that for a while, mostly because

1158
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:26,360
most of my clients who use me, they'll call me

1159
01:00:26,360 --> 01:00:29,199
in every couple of years to get them through some project,

1160
01:00:29,440 --> 01:00:31,480
to facilitate. They'll get all the important people in the

1161
01:00:31,559 --> 01:00:34,199
room and we'll spend three or four days just kind

1162
01:00:34,199 --> 01:00:37,719
of getting they hammered out. Right, And Richard, I know

1163
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:40,920
you've done stuff like that with groups, and the number

1164
01:00:40,920 --> 01:00:43,119
of people who could do that is so limited that

1165
01:00:44,079 --> 01:00:46,880
my clients are probably going to be still be begging

1166
01:00:46,920 --> 01:00:48,199
me to do that in five or six years.

1167
01:00:48,280 --> 01:00:51,360
Speaker 1: I tell you what, I love my small business customers.

1168
01:00:51,639 --> 01:00:54,840
I love working for small businesses because there's just so

1169
01:00:55,760 --> 01:00:59,679
fewer layers and politics. I mean, Richard's kind of a

1170
01:00:59,679 --> 01:01:02,559
pulled creature, but I don't like that at all. Kind

1171
01:01:02,599 --> 01:01:06,679
of well, yeah you are, yeah, you're right. Not kind

1172
01:01:06,719 --> 01:01:10,960
of absolutely thrives in a political environment, but not me.

1173
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:13,199
Speaker 4: So if I were you, if I were bossing some

1174
01:01:13,239 --> 01:01:15,920
of the people here about they talk because you talked

1175
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:20,639
about people becoming architects because that's the promotion path way. No,

1176
01:01:20,800 --> 01:01:24,159
they should be building a talent stack and learning how

1177
01:01:24,159 --> 01:01:28,559
to facilitate is a potential layer in that talent stack.

1178
01:01:28,760 --> 01:01:30,320
Speaker 2: No, No, And it's the thing is people who want

1179
01:01:30,360 --> 01:01:32,079
to move in that space, We've got to do a

1180
01:01:32,079 --> 01:01:34,559
better job of letting them be good at it, letting

1181
01:01:34,559 --> 01:01:37,559
them be able to learn. Again, I feel the same

1182
01:01:37,559 --> 01:01:41,639
way watching folks bounce between PM and direct dev where

1183
01:01:41,639 --> 01:01:44,360
it's like I love someone who wants to do both jobs.

1184
01:01:44,360 --> 01:01:46,320
Like sometimes you want to write in the code, sometimes

1185
01:01:46,360 --> 01:01:48,159
you want to help other people write the Yeah, yeah,

1186
01:01:48,280 --> 01:01:52,119
Like both are rewarding gigs. It's just do we give

1187
01:01:52,199 --> 01:01:54,320
room for folks to be able to change and to

1188
01:01:54,840 --> 01:01:58,280
you have to get up to speed and give them

1189
01:01:58,280 --> 01:02:01,920
appropriate projects. You can't be linear. It's not a linear process.

1190
01:02:02,079 --> 01:02:04,480
Speaker 4: But yeah, we don't. As you said, we don't invest

1191
01:02:04,480 --> 01:02:06,840
as much in helping people move in that direction as

1192
01:02:06,880 --> 01:02:09,159
we should. And if I were to suggest the very

1193
01:02:09,239 --> 01:02:12,360
first starting point, it would be learning how to listen better,

1194
01:02:13,360 --> 01:02:16,480
because in general, human beings are bad at listening. Developers

1195
01:02:16,480 --> 01:02:17,199
are human beings.

1196
01:02:17,199 --> 01:02:23,960
Speaker 1: So most sorry you say something, goodness, wife, I got

1197
01:02:24,119 --> 01:02:24,800
a dope slap.

1198
01:02:25,440 --> 01:02:27,599
Speaker 4: So there are various resources for that. That might be

1199
01:02:27,599 --> 01:02:29,559
another link if I can remember, put it on there

1200
01:02:29,639 --> 01:02:32,239
to get some some listening resources for people. There's a

1201
01:02:32,239 --> 01:02:37,320
book called The Charisma Myth that has an entire chapter

1202
01:02:37,360 --> 01:02:41,639
on listening with some exercises. Wow, that I think is worthwhile. So, yeah,

1203
01:02:41,679 --> 01:02:44,079
we need to help people move in that direction. Now

1204
01:02:44,079 --> 01:02:46,920
I'm going to be kind of again candid about it,

1205
01:02:46,960 --> 01:02:48,880
just as I was with some of the architectural stuff.

1206
01:02:50,119 --> 01:02:54,719
Some people don't have the call it presence. I guess

1207
01:02:55,480 --> 01:02:58,800
to be in that group and keep control of it.

1208
01:02:58,800 --> 01:03:02,639
It's it's kind of an born thing. And so you

1209
01:03:02,679 --> 01:03:04,400
want to if you're going to move in that direction,

1210
01:03:04,440 --> 01:03:06,760
you ought to you have to have that that inner

1211
01:03:06,800 --> 01:03:10,360
confidence that you can talk to people on their level,

1212
01:03:10,480 --> 01:03:12,880
even if no matter where they are, that you can

1213
01:03:12,920 --> 01:03:15,880
talk to them as equals, listen to them, but also

1214
01:03:15,960 --> 01:03:19,079
tell them when you think they're wrong, and work through

1215
01:03:19,239 --> 01:03:22,639
disagreements and such. Some people just worry too much about

1216
01:03:22,639 --> 01:03:26,679
other people's feelings and so they it's very hard for

1217
01:03:26,719 --> 01:03:29,639
them to step into that facilitation role. But if you

1218
01:03:29,679 --> 01:03:32,920
can do that, and I don't mean that you have

1219
01:03:32,960 --> 01:03:35,000
to be a jerk. I don't feel like I'm a jerk,

1220
01:03:35,199 --> 01:03:37,800
for example, but you do have to be able to

1221
01:03:38,519 --> 01:03:42,000
challenge people this. That's a phrase, just a free tip

1222
01:03:42,199 --> 01:03:44,000
for people who are in this that when they say

1223
01:03:44,039 --> 01:03:47,039
something you disagree with, don't say I disagree with that,

1224
01:03:48,039 --> 01:03:54,559
Say I challenge that. Notice the different psychology there.

1225
01:03:54,960 --> 01:03:56,840
Speaker 1: If I'm not saying I'm.

1226
01:03:56,360 --> 01:03:58,960
Speaker 4: Not wrong, you're saying I'm not sure that you're right

1227
01:03:59,000 --> 01:04:01,719
about that. So let's let's invot some more discussion of it.

1228
01:04:01,800 --> 01:04:03,960
Speaker 1: And it helps to have a sense of humor, Right, Billy.

1229
01:04:04,519 --> 01:04:07,320
Speaker 4: I'd like to think so yeah, I think so too.

1230
01:04:07,599 --> 01:04:11,960
Speaker 1: All right, well, we've wasted another hour and four minutes

1231
01:04:12,000 --> 01:04:15,039
of your precious life. I have always a waste it

1232
01:04:15,079 --> 01:04:17,880
was great listening to this lousy show. No I'm kidding,

1233
01:04:18,920 --> 01:04:21,559
So thank you, Billy. It's been great as always.

1234
01:04:21,440 --> 01:04:24,119
Speaker 4: You're welcome. I got to talk about a lot of stuff.

1235
01:04:24,159 --> 01:04:26,000
I was interested in it, and I hope people find

1236
01:04:26,039 --> 01:04:26,519
some value.

1237
01:04:26,880 --> 01:04:29,840
Speaker 1: I look forward to our next in person meeting as

1238
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:31,800
well as our next dot net rocks meeting. So thanks

1239
01:04:31,800 --> 01:04:35,400
again and we'll talk to you, dear listener next time

1240
01:04:35,519 --> 01:04:59,920
on dot net rocks. Dot net Rocks is brought to

1241
01:05:00,159 --> 01:05:04,159
by Franklin's Net and produced by Pop Studios, a full

1242
01:05:04,199 --> 01:05:08,400
service audio, video and post production facility located physically in

1243
01:05:08,480 --> 01:05:12,239
New London, Connecticut, and of course in the cloud online

1244
01:05:12,239 --> 01:05:16,119
at pwop dot com. Visit our website at d O

1245
01:05:16,239 --> 01:05:18,360
T N E t R O c k S dot

1246
01:05:18,400 --> 01:05:23,679
com for RSS feeds, downloads, mobile apps, comments, and access

1247
01:05:23,719 --> 01:05:26,559
to the full archives going back to show number one,

1248
01:05:26,760 --> 01:05:29,920
recorded in September two thousand and two. And make sure

1249
01:05:29,920 --> 01:05:32,519
you check out our sponsors. They keep us in business.

1250
01:05:33,000 --> 01:05:35,440
Now go write some code, See you next time.

1251
01:05:36,360 --> 01:05:37,840
Speaker 4: You got Ja met Van

1252
01:05:40,280 --> 01:05:44,960
Speaker 1: And