WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.080 --> 00:00:04.799 How'd you like to listen to dot NetRocks with no ads? Easy? 2 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:08.560 Become a patron For just five dollars a month, you 3 00:00:08.599 --> 00:00:11.320 get access to a private RSS feed where all the 4 00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:14.599 shows have no ads. Twenty dollars a month will get 5 00:00:14.599 --> 00:00:18.440 you that and a special dot NetRocks patron mug. Sign 6 00:00:18.519 --> 00:00:23.160 up now at Patreon dot dot NetRocks dot com. Hey, 7 00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:27.079 Carl and Richard here with your twenty twenty four NDC schedule. 8 00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:30.000 Will be at as many NDC conferences as possible this year, 9 00:00:30.039 --> 00:00:33.039 and you should consider attending no matter what. The Copenhagen 10 00:00:33.079 --> 00:00:36.640 Developers Festival happens August twenty sixth through the thirtieth. Tickets 11 00:00:36.679 --> 00:00:39.560 at Cphdevfest dot com. 12 00:00:39.920 --> 00:00:44.000 NDC Porto is happening October fourteenth through the eighteenth. The 13 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:50.000 early bird discount ends June fourteenth. Tickets at Ndcporto dot com. 14 00:00:50.039 --> 00:01:01.520 And we'll see you there, we hope. 15 00:01:04.879 --> 00:01:07.879 Hey, guess what it's dot net rox. I'm Carl Franklin, 16 00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:10.319 and I'm Richard Campbell, and Billy Hollis is here. Billy, 17 00:01:10.359 --> 00:01:13.599 you can chime in anytime, because I think you can. 18 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:14.640 Pass the threshold. 19 00:01:15.200 --> 00:01:18.280 I appreciate that I do, and I might, but you know, 20 00:01:18.319 --> 00:01:20.480 I know you guys have early show things you need 21 00:01:20.519 --> 00:01:22.000 to do, so I'll want you to go ahead and 22 00:01:22.040 --> 00:01:22.239 do that. 23 00:01:22.519 --> 00:01:23.719 No your first rodeo. 24 00:01:24.159 --> 00:01:26.599 Yeah, well, Billy, I don't know. I kind of think 25 00:01:26.640 --> 00:01:30.000 you're really gonna love my better no framework. And there's 26 00:01:30.040 --> 00:01:32.719 two of them for today, so by all means, feel 27 00:01:32.719 --> 00:01:34.959 free to jump in. After we roll the crazy music, 28 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:35.280 let's go. 29 00:01:43.599 --> 00:01:44.000 What do you got? 30 00:01:44.079 --> 00:01:47.680 All right? So I have a link to a Reddit 31 00:01:48.319 --> 00:01:53.159 rant and it's all about somebody who's ranting about zamal 32 00:01:53.239 --> 00:01:59.519 or WPF. Right, so here you go WPF zamal frustrations. Bill, 33 00:01:59.519 --> 00:02:01.560 You're gonna love this. I love that this is good 34 00:02:02.359 --> 00:02:04.959 and this is from three years ago. I am attempting 35 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:08.400 to broaden my c sharpabilities by making different UI projects. 36 00:02:08.879 --> 00:02:12.759 I've had two experience with examal, once at making a 37 00:02:12.800 --> 00:02:15.800 simple phone app, another just now while trying to make 38 00:02:15.800 --> 00:02:20.159 a personal project. Both have been incredibly infuriating. The first 39 00:02:20.199 --> 00:02:22.120 time I would just assume I was being dumb, but 40 00:02:22.159 --> 00:02:24.639 now I feel as though examal is just a steaming 41 00:02:24.759 --> 00:02:29.719 pile of dog shit nice. Anytime I edit a file, 42 00:02:29.759 --> 00:02:32.439 dot zamal er dot c S Visual Studio loses its 43 00:02:32.439 --> 00:02:35.639 fucking mind and throws the most ridiculous errors that I 44 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:38.280 have nothing to do with the problem. And I think 45 00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:40.439 that's more about visual Studio and no about examble. But 46 00:02:41.439 --> 00:02:44.639 half the time some magicalxamal dot g dot cs file 47 00:02:44.719 --> 00:02:47.800 breaks for no good reason in parentheses. No, it's not 48 00:02:47.879 --> 00:02:51.879 the common problem name spaces being wrong. Cleaning in or 49 00:02:51.919 --> 00:02:55.400 rebuilding the solution does not remove those errors. I have 50 00:02:55.479 --> 00:02:57.159 to let it happen, clear the file, and save it 51 00:02:57.199 --> 00:03:00.879 over again again. Nothing else in the change is just 52 00:03:00.919 --> 00:03:06.919 saving over these filed generated files fixes it. Then when 53 00:03:06.919 --> 00:03:08.639 I go to launch the project, it will not bring 54 00:03:08.759 --> 00:03:10.840 up the main view seventy five percent of the time 55 00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:14.159 without changing my code. Just some seemingly random combination of 56 00:03:14.199 --> 00:03:17.319 cleaning and rebuilding allows it to start again. I'm way 57 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:19.560 better with back end stuff, so maybe I'm doing something 58 00:03:19.639 --> 00:03:23.360 horribly wrong. I read the documentation, searched for solutions to 59 00:03:23.400 --> 00:03:26.080 my particular errors, and check every detail, but still feel 60 00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:29.520 like examble is an uphill battle. End of rant. And 61 00:03:29.560 --> 00:03:31.919 then he goes on and people try to talk him 62 00:03:31.919 --> 00:03:34.280 off the ledge. But Billy, I thought. 63 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:36.120 You, well, Zambo is an uphill battle. 64 00:03:36.199 --> 00:03:37.479 I thought you'd get a kick out of that. 65 00:03:37.639 --> 00:03:40.479 Learning how to use it effectively is hard. It's the 66 00:03:40.599 --> 00:03:44.280 C plus plus of enterdetechn of versation. 67 00:03:44.680 --> 00:03:47.919 Just waiting with a zero pointer to move everything. 68 00:03:48.159 --> 00:03:52.919 But you can do things with it that are difficult, impractical, 69 00:03:53.120 --> 00:03:55.919 or in a few cases impossible to do with other 70 00:03:56.120 --> 00:04:00.360 common technologies. And once you do learn how to do it, 71 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:02.080 and you learn to switch your mind and how to 72 00:04:02.120 --> 00:04:05.599 think about it, then you can create experiences for the 73 00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:10.639 users that have enormous value. It's worth it, but I'm not. 74 00:04:10.879 --> 00:04:13.680 I've never been one to say that you should just 75 00:04:13.759 --> 00:04:16.839 jump and dizamble and start using it. And no, it's 76 00:04:17.040 --> 00:04:20.199 it's it's a real uphill struggle. I mean, look, I 77 00:04:20.360 --> 00:04:23.120 made a lot of money training people and examble for 78 00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:27.519 many years because I constructed an approach to help people 79 00:04:27.639 --> 00:04:31.199 switch from the way they think about programming in regular 80 00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:35.920 code see sharp or whatever, which is an imperative way of. 81 00:04:36.360 --> 00:04:39.040 And as I said, I think this guy's problem was 82 00:04:39.120 --> 00:04:40.959 clearly one hundred percent visual studio. 83 00:04:41.240 --> 00:04:43.360 It wasn't you know. I read a little further down 84 00:04:43.399 --> 00:04:47.040 the line there he was using MVVM cross, So I 85 00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:49.240 wonder if he wasn't using it well, because you know, 86 00:04:49.279 --> 00:04:54.040 you have to approach those libraries with their intent. So 87 00:04:54.120 --> 00:04:56.879 I suspect he may have been just fighting with MVVM. 88 00:04:56.920 --> 00:04:59.319 And let's face it, when you mess with something related 89 00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:02.480 to the library, it's gonna spew terrible messages like you 90 00:05:02.519 --> 00:05:03.120 were gonna have it. 91 00:05:03.199 --> 00:05:05.000 All right, So I have something else that I want 92 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:07.600 to bring up in better no framework. I actually have 93 00:05:07.639 --> 00:05:13.240 two things. So Zamal for Blazer came out last year. Now, 94 00:05:13.639 --> 00:05:18.319 Zamal for Blazer is the brain child of Giovanni Albani, 95 00:05:18.399 --> 00:05:23.279 who's the guy behind open Silver, and it's also based 96 00:05:24.040 --> 00:05:29.639 on open Silver. So this is basically unleash the power 97 00:05:29.680 --> 00:05:34.839 example in your Blazer applications. Yeah, so it and open 98 00:05:34.879 --> 00:05:38.120 Silver was sort of an open source version of silver 99 00:05:38.240 --> 00:05:43.160 Light that Giovanni started. In fact, we interviewed him twice. 100 00:05:43.560 --> 00:05:46.279 Yep, yeah we he interviewed him twenty delivered. 101 00:05:45.920 --> 00:05:49.959 It exactly in twenty twenty and in twenty twenty one 102 00:05:50.040 --> 00:05:53.319 when he delivered it, and so so this is this 103 00:05:53.399 --> 00:05:55.959 is interesting stuff. So if you're you know, you want 104 00:05:55.959 --> 00:05:59.519 to get on the web and silver Light was the end, 105 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:01.839 I'll be all for you. And you liked Xamal in 106 00:06:01.879 --> 00:06:06.040 the browser, uh, Zambal for Blazer, Zamal Dash four Dash 107 00:06:06.120 --> 00:06:08.600 Blazer dot com checking out. 108 00:06:08.720 --> 00:06:11.279 That's been on my list to check out for a while. 109 00:06:11.759 --> 00:06:13.720 Yeah, it sounds like a show in the making, isn't it. 110 00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:16.199 I've done most of my stuff in that space with 111 00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:20.000 the Uno platform, yeah, and that has worked out pretty 112 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:23.519 well in general. They was a real road there over 113 00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:26.480 the last five or six years to get that complete 114 00:06:26.560 --> 00:06:29.360 and stable, especially for the web. Some of the early 115 00:06:29.399 --> 00:06:30.040 stuff they. 116 00:06:29.879 --> 00:06:32.279 Did, yeah, you know, did a lot of twist and turns. 117 00:06:32.439 --> 00:06:35.879 They came into the game as a UWP platform and 118 00:06:36.199 --> 00:06:39.720 realized they needed to transform and did yeah, like quite 119 00:06:39.720 --> 00:06:41.000 an accomplishment really. 120 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:45.959 So they're an interesting alternative to Zammering now for multiplatform stuff, 121 00:06:46.120 --> 00:06:48.560 and so I've been spending time with that. But yes, 122 00:06:48.600 --> 00:06:50.360 I'd like to take a look at Zambal for Blazer 123 00:06:50.360 --> 00:06:53.560 because I really do hope that the responsiveness of the 124 00:06:53.560 --> 00:06:55.800 Blazer engine will be the way to get a lot 125 00:06:55.839 --> 00:06:59.199 of the experiences I want to see and just normal websites. 126 00:06:59.560 --> 00:07:03.399 And you know, I'm I'm not gonna stop on the 127 00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:07.360 whole visual studio challenge thing. I often had problems like 128 00:07:07.399 --> 00:07:11.160 that even with MAUI in visual studio, with xamble, you know, 129 00:07:11.279 --> 00:07:14.439 overriding and generating files and then being out of sync 130 00:07:14.480 --> 00:07:17.279 and stuff. It's better now. But one of the things 131 00:07:17.319 --> 00:07:21.240 that's cool about the web platform is the whole rendering process. 132 00:07:21.800 --> 00:07:21.959 Right. 133 00:07:22.040 --> 00:07:25.600 You don't typically have those problems because but the end 134 00:07:25.639 --> 00:07:28.720 product you're looking at is just pure markup right in 135 00:07:28.879 --> 00:07:32.879 code or whatever. So anyway, that's a that's my rant. 136 00:07:33.199 --> 00:07:33.959 Who's talking to us? 137 00:07:34.079 --> 00:07:36.680 Richard grabbed a calm on top of Billy's last show 138 00:07:36.759 --> 00:07:40.040 when we did back in December twenty two, episode eighteen 139 00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:43.079 twenty two. Coincidental numbers. By the way, I believe this 140 00:07:43.160 --> 00:07:46.759 is your twenty fourth episode, Billy, oh man, I wow, 141 00:07:46.879 --> 00:07:49.240 do believe we owe you like a sack of submarine 142 00:07:49.279 --> 00:07:55.120 though this point. You were a guest on episode three three, Yeah, 143 00:07:54.959 --> 00:07:57.519 you know, and here you are now on what is 144 00:07:57.560 --> 00:07:59.839 this episode nineteen fifteen? 145 00:08:00.120 --> 00:08:02.439 So I can't believe people aren't just tired to listen 146 00:08:02.439 --> 00:08:02.800 it to me. 147 00:08:03.079 --> 00:08:06.399 Well, I'm not, you know. I call you routinely because 148 00:08:06.399 --> 00:08:08.319 I see the work you're doing. I'm like, oh, dude, 149 00:08:08.360 --> 00:08:11.079 I want to talk about that, right, Like that's the reality. 150 00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:13.439 Always doing something new. I'm too easily bored to keep 151 00:08:13.439 --> 00:08:14.439 doing the same self. 152 00:08:14.240 --> 00:08:15.360 So exactly true. 153 00:08:15.439 --> 00:08:18.399 Still, so that last episode was Thinking High Level Design, 154 00:08:18.399 --> 00:08:20.560 which I thought was really enjoyable. We had a great 155 00:08:20.759 --> 00:08:24.439 conversation there, and the audience seemed to agree because lots 156 00:08:24.439 --> 00:08:26.759 of messages and this one's from Ismo who said this 157 00:08:26.800 --> 00:08:30.240 sounded like a fun episode of discourse with Billy, Carl 158 00:08:30.279 --> 00:08:32.840 and Richard. It really got some wheels turning into discussion. 159 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:34.960 One particular part of the episode that stood out for 160 00:08:34.960 --> 00:08:37.639 me is when Billy mentioned the idea that companies quote 161 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:41.240 have designers, but they don't know how to implement design 162 00:08:41.279 --> 00:08:45.080 thinking and produce great high level design. Similarly, I find 163 00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:48.240 we could apply the same logic to most enterprise architects. 164 00:08:48.600 --> 00:08:51.120 They know how to organize and dive deep into code 165 00:08:51.399 --> 00:08:54.120 and maybe how to output some pretty nice cloud diagrams, 166 00:08:54.440 --> 00:08:57.799 but we seem to fail spectacularly in putting all the 167 00:08:57.840 --> 00:09:00.960 pieces together to make a very well put together pieces 168 00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:03.960 of software. High level design thinking can fit this, if 169 00:09:03.960 --> 00:09:05.840 only we could get out of our own way. 170 00:09:06.279 --> 00:09:07.600 I can't argue with any of that. 171 00:09:07.879 --> 00:09:10.399 Well, my immediate thought is, you know where do most 172 00:09:10.519 --> 00:09:13.279 architects come from? This is my only promotion path as 173 00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:16.799 a developer, So you're sort of driven into the architectural role, 174 00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:18.399 whether it's a natural fit for you or not, and 175 00:09:18.440 --> 00:09:22.120 you rarely get additional training. And so this idea of 176 00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:28.039 being that architectural leadership, of really being you know, responsible 177 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:30.320 for the shape of your project, I just don't know 178 00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:34.440 that anybody takes that on intentionally. You have to eventually 179 00:09:34.440 --> 00:09:36.759 realize it needs to be done or you don't. And 180 00:09:36.799 --> 00:09:38.360 it's a weak spot in the whole thing. 181 00:09:38.639 --> 00:09:41.320 There isn't really an education path for it, right, Yeah, 182 00:09:41.799 --> 00:09:43.960 So somebody has kind of have some natural talent and 183 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:46.679 try things out, maybe they have a mentor if they're lucky. 184 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:50.320 But the supply of enterprise architects who are actually good 185 00:09:50.320 --> 00:09:53.559 at what they do is so limited that it's it's 186 00:09:53.600 --> 00:09:55.519 hard to find a mentor and do things. You have 187 00:09:55.600 --> 00:09:57.919 to solve real problems to do it, and we really 188 00:09:57.919 --> 00:10:00.639 don't have anything a lot. We have less than ten 189 00:10:00.679 --> 00:10:02.919 percent of the expertise in our product atensure that we 190 00:10:02.960 --> 00:10:04.320 need in this profession. 191 00:10:04.519 --> 00:10:09.159 Well, and going back to design aptitude, I have a 192 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:12.879 story from my own family. My daughter Emmy in as 193 00:10:12.879 --> 00:10:16.279 a junior in high school. Turns out she had ridiculous 194 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:19.759 artistic talent, right she was doing three D models, and 195 00:10:19.799 --> 00:10:24.799 she met with one of her mentors who said, you 196 00:10:24.840 --> 00:10:28.080 should go to in for industrial design. So she went 197 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:31.200 to Rhode Island School Design, which is Risney's prestigious design 198 00:10:31.240 --> 00:10:34.879 school in these coasts, and Risney and got a degree 199 00:10:34.879 --> 00:10:38.399 in industrial design. And I said to her, hey, you know, 200 00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:40.559 can you help me with like some some web stuff. 201 00:10:40.600 --> 00:10:42.159 She's like, I don't want to do web stuff. Hey 202 00:10:42.159 --> 00:10:43.759 can you help me with some graphics? And that I 203 00:10:43.799 --> 00:10:46.279 don't want to do graphics, you know, she's like, she 204 00:10:46.399 --> 00:10:48.240 was like, I want to do industrial design. Guess what 205 00:10:48.279 --> 00:10:48.720 she's doing. 206 00:10:48.759 --> 00:10:49.799 Now, what's that? 207 00:10:49.919 --> 00:10:50.559 Web design? 208 00:10:50.639 --> 00:10:51.240 Web design? 209 00:10:51.279 --> 00:10:54.679 Yeah? All right, well she's doing it on the side, 210 00:10:55.120 --> 00:10:56.879 but yeah, she. 211 00:10:56.799 --> 00:10:59.600 Has That's just that's the easy way to get into design. 212 00:11:00.320 --> 00:11:03.240 And it is a look. I go to a lot 213 00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:08.919 of meetings of meetups for designers, for visual designers, and 214 00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:10.960 I talked to a lot of people at conferences and 215 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:15.279 things like that, and we've reached a point now where 216 00:11:15.320 --> 00:11:18.399 those people, for a lot of the decision makers in business, 217 00:11:18.799 --> 00:11:22.399 those web designers, that's what design is. Yeah, as far 218 00:11:22.440 --> 00:11:25.799 as executives are concerned, that's not really healthy. Because that's 219 00:11:25.799 --> 00:11:29.159 why I started to talk more about design thinking instead 220 00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:32.679 of just design because the term design is so overloaded. 221 00:11:32.759 --> 00:11:35.200 Yeah, so sure so is well, thank you so much 222 00:11:35.200 --> 00:11:37.080 for your comment, and the copy music co Buy is 223 00:11:37.080 --> 00:11:38.200 on its way to you. And if you'd like a 224 00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:39.840 copy of music go buy right a comment on the 225 00:11:39.840 --> 00:11:42.120 website at dot at rocks dot com or on the facebooks. 226 00:11:42.120 --> 00:11:44.159 We publish every show there and if you comment there 227 00:11:44.159 --> 00:11:45.360 and to read on the show, we'll send you a 228 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:46.279 copy of music go buy. 229 00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:49.320 And yeah, music to code buy is still going strong. Yeah, 230 00:11:49.879 --> 00:11:53.320 people are still loving it helps you stay and focus 231 00:11:53.399 --> 00:11:56.879 while you code or do anything deep work. It's the 232 00:11:56.960 --> 00:11:59.639 term I heard today. I like that talking about work. 233 00:12:00.159 --> 00:12:03.120 All right, So let me formally introduce Billy Hollis in 234 00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:05.039 case you've been sleeping under a rock for the last 235 00:12:05.039 --> 00:12:08.600 twenty years. Billy is a software designer and developer with 236 00:12:08.679 --> 00:12:13.000 a contrarian streak that often challenges conventional wisdom in the industry. 237 00:12:14.039 --> 00:12:15.159 Is that true, Richard. 238 00:12:16.559 --> 00:12:17.639 No mo. 239 00:12:18.360 --> 00:12:20.840 If you need to to testers for every developer, you 240 00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:22.039 must suck as. 241 00:12:21.919 --> 00:12:23.679 A developer. 242 00:12:25.200 --> 00:12:30.519 End quote. He has a consulting practice in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. 243 00:12:30.639 --> 00:12:33.320 He and his team focus on user experience design, which 244 00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:38.399 is ux advanced user interface development. Rules based architectures and 245 00:12:38.519 --> 00:12:42.440 healthcare systems. He teaches classes for design thinking and UX 246 00:12:42.480 --> 00:12:45.799 design and technical classes on zamal for win UI and 247 00:12:45.919 --> 00:12:50.399 Zamle for WPF. Okay, there you go, your official bio 248 00:12:50.519 --> 00:12:51.799 for today. Billy, you go. 249 00:12:52.600 --> 00:12:55.840 Yeah, And what the bio never says, because there's no 250 00:12:55.879 --> 00:12:57.639 good way to put it in there, is that what 251 00:12:57.720 --> 00:13:00.919 I really am is a generalist. And I decided that 252 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:03.480 all the way back in high school that that's what 253 00:13:03.519 --> 00:13:06.519 I was going to be. In an economy where everybody 254 00:13:06.679 --> 00:13:09.320 tells you to specialize, I already decided I was going 255 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:10.639 to be a generalist. 256 00:13:10.360 --> 00:13:12.320 When I first met you, and at least twenty years 257 00:13:12.360 --> 00:13:16.919 ago now you were much more an app architect personality. 258 00:13:17.360 --> 00:13:21.879 I watched you evolve into someone who cared deeply about design. 259 00:13:22.039 --> 00:13:25.600 Well, you watched me expose it. Yeah, perhaps, says but 260 00:13:25.679 --> 00:13:28.000 I cared about it before that. It's just that nobody 261 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:29.679 else in the industry did, so I didn't talk about 262 00:13:29.679 --> 00:13:29.919 it then. 263 00:13:29.960 --> 00:13:32.879 Well, and the tech also changed, Like you were there 264 00:13:32.960 --> 00:13:36.440 first when zamble emerged, and you were long before Microsoft 265 00:13:36.519 --> 00:13:37.639 knew what the heck to do with that, you were 266 00:13:37.679 --> 00:13:38.559 already gone in a way. 267 00:13:38.799 --> 00:13:41.320 Well, that was the reason I embraced it so much. 268 00:13:41.440 --> 00:13:44.960 Is that sensibility about doing design? Remember my first book 269 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:51.120 in nineteen ninety nine has the title Design, Specification and Objects, 270 00:13:51.600 --> 00:13:53.919 which kind of helps you understand that I was moving 271 00:13:53.960 --> 00:13:57.759 in that direction even earlier. But yeah, nobody cared about 272 00:13:57.799 --> 00:14:00.559 it until some of the technologies came out to be 273 00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:02.600 able to do some of these interesting things. 274 00:14:02.759 --> 00:14:06.519 Nineteen ninety nine when the word objects was novel was novel. 275 00:14:06.600 --> 00:14:10.639 Yeah, and the iPhone was one of the break points 276 00:14:11.120 --> 00:14:14.720 to put people into a new way of thinking to. 277 00:14:14.799 --> 00:14:15.480 Learn the words. 278 00:14:15.960 --> 00:14:17.720 So that's why I began talking about it more. I 279 00:14:17.840 --> 00:14:20.080 cared about it before that, and I've certainly learned a 280 00:14:20.159 --> 00:14:22.919 huge amount of the last fifteen years. But yeah, I 281 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:24.799 always cared more about it that I think than most 282 00:14:24.799 --> 00:14:25.759 people in the industry. 283 00:14:26.679 --> 00:14:29.840 So you're thinking these days about how to make design pay? 284 00:14:30.480 --> 00:14:31.360 What do you mean by that? 285 00:14:31.679 --> 00:14:37.000 Yeah, well, see, that's that's because the entire area is confused. 286 00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:39.919 I talked about this. You go to a typical person 287 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:45.120 running a software development team and he somebody tells him, man, 288 00:14:45.159 --> 00:14:47.799 you need a designer, and he goes to HR what's 289 00:14:47.960 --> 00:14:50.320 what's what are they going to get? They're probably going 290 00:14:50.360 --> 00:14:52.120 to get a web designer, because that's just what the 291 00:14:52.159 --> 00:14:56.279 industry kind of thinks. Well, the term design thinking is 292 00:14:56.320 --> 00:14:59.120 to help break loose from that, because from my perspective, 293 00:14:59.799 --> 00:15:04.960 that kind of visual oriented design is the lowest step 294 00:15:05.480 --> 00:15:06.919 above not doing design at all. 295 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:09.279 Hamburger menu or no Hamburger menu. 296 00:15:09.360 --> 00:15:12.519 Yeah, I don't mean to say it doesn't any value, 297 00:15:12.519 --> 00:15:16.759 because it does. Nobody wants an ugly application or website, 298 00:15:17.120 --> 00:15:20.600 and proper layout and good cosmetics do in fact increase 299 00:15:20.639 --> 00:15:24.200 the quality and value of websites and of apps. But 300 00:15:24.360 --> 00:15:28.000 when you start getting into interaction now, the potential for 301 00:15:28.480 --> 00:15:32.399 design to do things goes up. And there's a spectrum 302 00:15:32.399 --> 00:15:35.960 that goes all the way up to business process re engineering, 303 00:15:36.679 --> 00:15:40.120 designing entirely new ways for a business to operate. Design 304 00:15:40.200 --> 00:15:43.919 thinking embraces that entire spectrum. And I want people in 305 00:15:43.960 --> 00:15:47.159 the industry to kind of understand what level are you at, 306 00:15:47.960 --> 00:15:52.080 because what level you're at now determines what kind of 307 00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:54.000 people do you need to get to help you Billy. 308 00:15:54.039 --> 00:15:59.159 Sometimes you know this the simplest decision, the simplest decision 309 00:15:59.200 --> 00:16:02.720 should it go here or here, can make the difference 310 00:16:02.720 --> 00:16:06.320 between some process that takes an hour and a process 311 00:16:06.399 --> 00:16:09.360 that takes ten to fifteen minutes, the simplest decision. 312 00:16:09.440 --> 00:16:12.480 There's a famous article that's that's still relevant called the 313 00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:15.720 six million dollar Button. Yeah, you've probably seen that article 314 00:16:15.759 --> 00:16:17.480 one time or another. Thad if you google that, anybody 315 00:16:17.480 --> 00:16:19.799 who's listening can google that and get the article on 316 00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:23.080 how moving a button save six million dollars? 317 00:16:23.600 --> 00:16:27.120 Are banks the worst? Bank websites the worst? In your opinion? 318 00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:31.320 I mean in my opinion. Richard's nodding in, So I 319 00:16:31.360 --> 00:16:33.799 have a local bank, and I wouldn't trade them for 320 00:16:33.799 --> 00:16:36.399 the world. They're the best because they're local. Even when 321 00:16:36.480 --> 00:16:38.960 I go to like the virtual ATM, like the people 322 00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:41.039 that come on screen, Oh hey, Carl, how's it going. 323 00:16:41.080 --> 00:16:44.720 How's the band right? Like? I feel connected to this bank. 324 00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:50.080 And yet the process for doing ach payments, which is, 325 00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:53.480 you know, direct deposit payments, requires you to go to 326 00:16:53.519 --> 00:16:59.399 a screen see a list of the last payments that 327 00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:03.159 you did, that all the way down to Texas, you know, 328 00:17:03.600 --> 00:17:05.880 And to start a new one you have to scroll 329 00:17:05.920 --> 00:17:08.400 all the way to the bottom and hit new nice. 330 00:17:08.480 --> 00:17:11.839 And then after you do a new one, it goes 331 00:17:11.880 --> 00:17:14.440 to the bottom again, and so you have to sort 332 00:17:14.920 --> 00:17:17.920 by date and then sort by date again to get 333 00:17:18.039 --> 00:17:20.720 to what you just put in so you can edit it. 334 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:26.960 And this is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever seen. 335 00:17:27.960 --> 00:17:29.119 And it's a bank. 336 00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:32.920 Well, yeah, banks are some of the worst offenders, and 337 00:17:33.240 --> 00:17:36.799 there really isn't much excuse for that. My eighty eight 338 00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:40.920 year old mom does online banking and they keep changing 339 00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:45.599 the site. Now. Look, she's smart and she did eventually 340 00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:47.960 learn to do her online banking. In fact, she prefers 341 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:50.359 it now. Her mobility is more limited than it used 342 00:17:50.359 --> 00:17:52.559 to be, so not having to trot down the bank 343 00:17:52.640 --> 00:17:56.000 is a big help for her. But I mean when 344 00:17:56.200 --> 00:17:59.279 she calls me once every year or two, they've changed 345 00:17:59.319 --> 00:18:00.839 the page and I don't understand what. 346 00:18:01.599 --> 00:18:04.759 Yeah, oh, they made it easier, mom, They and they didn't. 347 00:18:04.440 --> 00:18:06.799 Make it easier, that's the problem. In many cases, they 348 00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:09.319 just changed it for the sake of change. Now the 349 00:18:09.400 --> 00:18:13.599 banks are learning and they are getting better. My bank 350 00:18:13.880 --> 00:18:16.519 US Bank actually does a pretty good job with their 351 00:18:16.559 --> 00:18:20.839 website and just an excellent job with the app that 352 00:18:21.400 --> 00:18:24.119 they put on the phone, So they're kind of learning this. 353 00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:30.119 But yeah, I hear complaints about banking sites and apps 354 00:18:30.319 --> 00:18:30.920 all the time. 355 00:18:31.039 --> 00:18:33.400 I guess if it works, that's enough for them. Right, 356 00:18:33.480 --> 00:18:35.960 because people are going to be able to do and 357 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:38.480 it doesn't matter how frustrating it is for them, they'll 358 00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:38.839 do it. 359 00:18:39.079 --> 00:18:41.640 That was a quote that I coined way back in 360 00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:44.640 probably twenty eleven, was that for most of the time 361 00:18:44.680 --> 00:18:48.400 in this industry, just making something possible was enough that 362 00:18:48.440 --> 00:18:52.359 people consider themselves successful. But it really shouldn't be it. Also, 363 00:18:52.640 --> 00:18:55.559 you also should consider making it easy as part of 364 00:18:55.559 --> 00:18:56.440 their success. 365 00:18:56.119 --> 00:18:58.720 And enjoyable even shall we even go that far? 366 00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:03.160 Yeah, delightful, but yeah, okay, we talked about the six 367 00:19:03.160 --> 00:19:07.039 million dollar button. The real question always is you're delaying 368 00:19:07.119 --> 00:19:09.599 writing code, messing around with the design stuff. Let's just 369 00:19:09.640 --> 00:19:10.319 get to work. 370 00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:15.440 Yeah, And my perspective on that is, and having been 371 00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:18.160 involved in a ton of projects both with and without 372 00:19:18.279 --> 00:19:21.079 design up front, all the way back to see stuff 373 00:19:21.079 --> 00:19:24.599 in the eighties and the late seventies, I have never 374 00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:30.559 seen a project where designed doing design up front wasted 375 00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:33.839 time or took more time until you finally got delivery. 376 00:19:33.880 --> 00:19:36.920 And the reason is it eliminates a lot of blond alleys, right. 377 00:19:36.920 --> 00:19:39.000 I mean, if you don't do design, you're going to 378 00:19:39.119 --> 00:19:41.640 end up doing things that you take to people and 379 00:19:41.640 --> 00:19:44.119 they go, now, this isn't what I needed, or this 380 00:19:44.200 --> 00:19:46.279 isn't good now, or I hate this and then have 381 00:19:46.319 --> 00:19:48.559 to do rework on it. So the idea that you 382 00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:51.680 need to start coding first, I mean back end stuff. 383 00:19:51.680 --> 00:19:54.400 I guess maybe even there though, I think the back 384 00:19:54.480 --> 00:19:57.039 end is sometimes more affected by what goes on with 385 00:19:57.079 --> 00:19:59.400 the user than a lot of developers tend to think. 386 00:19:59.519 --> 00:20:02.920 But developers, and they do, dare I say, test their 387 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:06.599 apps in you know, in development, they have to test them. 388 00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:10.119 So the idiot that designed that page had to fill 389 00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:12.519 the screen with dummy data and scroll all the way 390 00:20:12.519 --> 00:20:15.400 to the bottom. You would think he said, hey, I 391 00:20:15.480 --> 00:20:18.319 got an idea, let's put these buttons at the top 392 00:20:18.359 --> 00:20:21.119 of the page. He would probably. 393 00:20:20.640 --> 00:20:23.039 Had three records, like he never considered that somebody would 394 00:20:23.039 --> 00:20:23.599 have more. 395 00:20:23.640 --> 00:20:24.279 Probably right. 396 00:20:24.400 --> 00:20:26.920 Yeah, but you've got that psychology, Carl, And I've got 397 00:20:26.960 --> 00:20:30.240 it too that I see these flaws and that irritate me. 398 00:20:30.759 --> 00:20:34.000 I have an emotional response to these flaws. But I 399 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:35.599 can tell you that a lot of developers don't. 400 00:20:35.920 --> 00:20:38.359 My wife that my wife uses an app and she 401 00:20:38.359 --> 00:20:42.400 can't figure out She's like, some damn programmers screw this up. 402 00:20:44.200 --> 00:20:48.079 And I think that's that's good. Yeah, especially for developers 403 00:20:48.240 --> 00:20:52.039 they ought to be offended by poor design on behalf 404 00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:54.880 of the users. But the fact of the matter is, 405 00:20:54.920 --> 00:20:58.359 I'll run into a lot of developers that just oh, scroll, okay, fine, 406 00:20:58.599 --> 00:21:00.240 I mean, they're paying me by the hour, does it 407 00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:01.319 matter to me how much I scroll. 408 00:21:02.240 --> 00:21:04.880 Kelly's mother is a Southern bell from Lake, Missouri, right, 409 00:21:05.039 --> 00:21:08.160 so anytime anything screws up, she will always say, some 410 00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:09.720 man probably designed this. 411 00:21:14.319 --> 00:21:19.480 I will say that in general, while the difference isn't great, 412 00:21:20.079 --> 00:21:22.640 the women in this industry do pretty well at design, 413 00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:26.799 and maybe somewhat better than the men. Now, there are 414 00:21:26.839 --> 00:21:28.559 men who do a great job, but there are more 415 00:21:28.599 --> 00:21:30.599 men who just aren't any good at it at all. 416 00:21:30.960 --> 00:21:33.720 So the women win on average. 417 00:21:33.319 --> 00:21:34.759 I think, And I wonder if it's just a lack 418 00:21:34.759 --> 00:21:38.640 of awareness, like you're not noticing that this UX could 419 00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:39.559 be better well. 420 00:21:39.759 --> 00:21:42.119 And that's why some of the very first stuff I 421 00:21:42.200 --> 00:21:45.160 ever started talking about in seminars and such for UX 422 00:21:45.440 --> 00:21:47.920 was about the principles of how the brain works now 423 00:21:47.920 --> 00:21:53.480 the visual system works, because that sensitizes you to things 424 00:21:53.720 --> 00:21:57.039 that if you know why something doesn't work, well, why 425 00:21:57.039 --> 00:21:59.759 don't people like to scroll? Well? That does not work 426 00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:04.200 in concert with the visual and cognitive systems. You're constantly 427 00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:08.319 having to refresh and absorb new material, which which causes 428 00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:11.440 cognitive effort as well as wasted time. So when you 429 00:22:11.480 --> 00:22:13.359 start to learn some of these principles about how the 430 00:22:13.400 --> 00:22:16.160 brain and the eyes work, now you tend to notice 431 00:22:16.279 --> 00:22:21.240 things more that don't work in concert with them, and 432 00:22:21.759 --> 00:22:23.759 thereby slow people down and frustrate them. 433 00:22:23.799 --> 00:22:26.039 Do you do a lot of reworking of legacy apps? 434 00:22:26.920 --> 00:22:31.240 Billy Well, I personally don't do a lot. I do some, 435 00:22:32.599 --> 00:22:36.559 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 00:22:46.680 --> 00:22:49.599 lots of teams have these legacy apps that are there 439 00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:53.680 are many millions of dollars invested in and they have 440 00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:58.640 yet to experience the pressure to replace that moved new technologies. 441 00:22:58.680 --> 00:23:02.279 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 00:23:04.319 --> 00:23:07.559 typically involved me. But most people aren't in that situation. 444 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:11.359 So I've been doing a session lately on ux designed 445 00:23:11.359 --> 00:23:14.000 for legacy apps. That's been pretty popular. I've done it 446 00:23:14.039 --> 00:23:15.400 at several conferences. 447 00:23:15.559 --> 00:23:18.880 That's good. I have a customer and I looked at 448 00:23:18.880 --> 00:23:21.480 this legacy app that I was upgrading. I said, how 449 00:23:21.480 --> 00:23:24.519 old is this? And they said, oh, since about episode 450 00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:25.559 eight hundred. 451 00:23:28.559 --> 00:23:32.640 Twenty thirteen is something like that stuff like that. So 452 00:23:32.680 --> 00:23:36.119 I've still got your list of shows up there. So yeah, yeah, 453 00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:39.319 it would have been about twenty thirteen, twenty twelve. 454 00:23:39.480 --> 00:23:42.519 I basically remember that because episode six hundred was the 455 00:23:42.519 --> 00:23:45.519 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 00:23:54.240 --> 00:23:56.799 development and all the extra testing and all the stuff 459 00:23:56.839 --> 00:23:59.240 that goes with it, and we did that on stage 460 00:23:59.279 --> 00:24:03.079 in San Diego, yep and twenty ten, I think, and 461 00:24:03.119 --> 00:24:06.000 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 00:24:07.240 --> 00:24:11.480 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 00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:18.480 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 00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:34.279 though I do sessions for people for free to sort 470 00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:36.559 of introduce them to the whole idea of design. And 471 00:24:36.559 --> 00:24:38.720 that's partially because we don't have sales when we don't 472 00:24:38.720 --> 00:24:42.279 do traditional marketing, so that introduces me to people. I mean, 473 00:24:42.319 --> 00:24:45.359 the primary way that I find new people to work 474 00:24:45.400 --> 00:24:48.359 with is the conferences and going to and doing sessions 475 00:24:48.400 --> 00:24:51.480 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 Scratch step one, burn it down. 490 00:25:30.079 --> 00:25:33.200 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 Just time and have these programmers ever heard of link? 512 00:26:40.759 --> 00:26:46.359 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 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 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 Certainly that reads spreadsheets. Yeah, that's kind of new. 534 00:27:56.279 --> 00:28:02.160 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 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 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 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 Yeah, it'll be okay. 564 00:29:24.279 --> 00:29:26.480 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 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 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 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 Good at it. 597 00:30:57.240 --> 00:31:01.480 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 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 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 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 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 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 Yeah, just Raightbode, it's a radio button. 639 00:33:05.319 --> 00:33:08.279 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 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 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 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 Yeah, well pi charts were always bad. 683 00:35:40.840 --> 00:35:45.119 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 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 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 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 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 For pollsamic with a queue. 714 00:37:09.280 --> 00:37:11.920 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 Sorry, pencil, paper, pencil. 730 00:37:54.039 --> 00:37:57.280 Yeah, that technology has been around for two thousand years now. 731 00:37:57.360 --> 00:38:05.840 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 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 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 Take a picture. 740 00:38:32.719 --> 00:38:34.840 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 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 Everybody got a corner. 751 00:39:01.679 --> 00:39:05.079 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 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 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 But blank paper very good. 778 00:40:21.440 --> 00:40:24.519 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 At least let them use the clipboard for crying out. 831 00:43:12.599 --> 00:43:15.320 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 Out of order. 838 00:43:32.480 --> 00:43:35.079 Yeah, and you could they just fail, Yeah. 839 00:43:34.960 --> 00:43:37.920 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 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 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 Yeah. Yeah. 854 00:44:09.159 --> 00:44:11.159 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 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 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 They when there's eleven they added the memory tabs. 872 00:45:02.280 --> 00:45:04.119 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 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 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 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 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 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 Wow. 958 00:49:42.320 --> 00:49:44.760 Yeah, there's a lot of skill about to walk out there. 959 00:49:44.760 --> 00:49:47.039 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 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 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 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 I don't think I've ever heard anything. 1020 00:52:56.039 --> 00:52:59.280 That ridiculous it's coming. 1021 00:52:59.119 --> 00:53:01.480 But way it probably is. 1022 00:53:01.880 --> 00:53:03.960 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 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 Nope, sure thing. 1039 00:53:48.119 --> 00:53:51.760 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 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 So basically what you're saying is most architects are full of. 1067 00:55:38.920 --> 00:55:41.760 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 You suppose? Well, how many can actually do the work? 1072 00:55:55.679 --> 00:55:57.000 How many can actually do the work. 1073 00:55:57.199 --> 00:55:59.519 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 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 Well, of course the best architects, of course they listen. 1079 00:56:13.599 --> 00:56:16.599 To do well, you're absolutely right self selection, right. 1080 00:56:16.519 --> 00:56:18.440 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 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 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 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, right, So boyd. 1099 00:57:13.760 --> 00:57:15.800 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 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 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 That's really good, yes, and that to. 1109 00:57:45.320 --> 00:57:47.719 Us that slide too, it's popular, very good. 1110 00:57:47.760 --> 00:57:49.559 So what's next for you, Billy? What do you want to. 1111 00:57:49.960 --> 00:57:52.920 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 If I'm not saying I'm. 1226 01:03:56.360 --> 01:03:58.960 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 And it helps to have a sense of humor, Right, Billy. 1229 01:04:04.519 --> 01:04:07.320 I'd like to think so yeah, I think so too. 1230 01:04:07.599 --> 01:04:11.960 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 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 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 You got Ja met Van 1252 01:05:40.280 --> 01:05:44.960 And