Computers are supposed to make our lives easier, right? Despite this, people still have a hard time using the hardware or software on it. What should be intuitive is not usually the case. This is the premise of Steve Krug’s book, Don’t Make Me Think, as he explores the world of Web design.

How many times have you been on a Web site and you are having a hard time finding information when you know you should be able to easily find it? I am not just talking about novice users here, as this happens to yours truly all the time, and I like to consider myself an experienced Web user! Somebody somewhere made some decision to layout and design a Web site a certain way, and thus your pain. In Don’t Make Me Think, common-sense, straightforward information is presented to the reader, who should be everyone from a Web designer to Web developer to Web site owner.

Needless to say, I had many takeaways from this book, all of which are of equal weight as I believe in what this book talks about quite a bit! Here are a few of them:

Creative Doesn’t Mean Different – Many times I see a Web site or hear from someone who created one that is virtually impossible to use, and it is deemed to be “highly creative.” Where there is more than likely some creative minds behind it, in the end a Web site needs to be usable, and if it is not, then it is merely something nice to look at, but not touch. A Web site can still be creative yet intuitive, and great Web designers know how to do that.

A Redesign of a Web Site Should Be Thorough – Many times when Web sites are redesigned, it is merely a fresh coat of paint on an old home (page). If that is the case, then the design can be hampered by old code behind the scenes, which can hamper its usability as well as its growth. When approaching a Web site redesign, be as comprehensive as possible, including all elements, to prevent the need for more work soon after it is completed.

There Is No Such Things As A Typical User – When we at Dunkirk Systems, LLC work with clients on a Web site, we seek to identify potential users of the Web site. These users are identified by their role or title – media, consumers, students, etc. – and not by their technical ability. In the past, there was always a desire to identify the “typical user” and this meant more about their ability, which related to the complexity of the Web site. Krug backups the notion that there is no such typical user, and I concur from my own personal experience.

Testing a Web Site is Not Just for Experts – Where quality assurance (QA) and usability experts are vital to many Web sites and applications, if your budget does not allow for such experts, you can still do effective testing.

I enjoyed reading Don’t Make Me Think, and I highly recommend it to anybody involved in the creation or maintenance of Web sites, as well as anyone who owns one or who wants to. It is written in a no-nonsense yet lighthearted style that is suitable for the most technical and non-technical people.

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Book Take-Aways • Technology • (1) Comments • Permalink

1,069 pages. That’s one-thousand, sixty-nine pages, and no pictures either. The text on the pages was tight to the margins too. Spending an hour may get you through a dozen pages. Thus reading Atlas Shrugged took me almost a year, and finally I have another book takeaway to present.

That being said, I enjoyed reading Ayn Rand’s famous novel. I came by it from mentions in other books and blogs I have read, as well as from reports in the media. The latter has much to do with the free-market theme of the book. Many who call themselves Libertarians consider this book from their inspiration to their manifesto. As a result, Atlas Shrugged is referred to much with regards to today’s political environment, especially in the US, and by “both sides of the aisle” in one form or another. That being said, I am not writing takeaways about politics, as I wish only to look at what I took away from it within the theme of The Hot Iron. Any other dialogue on it can be discussed over adult beverages!

With that setup, here are my takeaways from Atlas Shrugged.

Understand the big picture – Many times decisions are made in business (and life too) that have an impact within a small sphere. Even if the results of these decisions are successful, they could have a negative impact on the bigger picture. Sometimes when an action is taken locally it may have not been needed, as there could have been something globally that could have been tapped into, thus saving time and cost. More often than not, a decision is made without regard it may impact those outside of the sphere, and ultimately does.

The best way I approach this is to step back and say to myself, “what is the ultimate goal?” This type of thinking outside of the box almost always brings creative ideas.

Get the best people for the job – There are 2 ways to do this. One is to simply match the job with the best qualified individual, one who brings experience and integrity to the role. The second way is to hire someone who you believe can do the job and manage them well and give them the time and venue to learn the job. If you don’t give someone the opportunity to thrive, they won’t.

Stick to your principles – Your principles are the one thing you can truly own. When your business runs out of customers, time or money, you will still have your principles. When you compromise them, not only are you changing how you operate but also yourself. You can change aspects of how you execute and still stick to your principles. It may take more effort, but in the end you will still be you.

Know when to quit – Quitting doesn’t mean a finite termination in all cases. It could be pausing what you do or simply doing what you do best in a different venue. Quitting is often considered failure. But if you look at the big picture, you may not see that is necessarily the case.

I enjoyed the journey that was reading Atlas Shrugged and highly recommend it to everyone. I considered it a worthwhile investment of my time. Now back to my other books that stacked up over the last year.

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Book Take-Aways • Business • (5) Comments • Permalink

When I began writing book take-aways, it started with a goal of clearing my bookshelf of long unread books. But as I traveled along this literary journey, I discovered other books to read, many of which were mentioned in some of the books I previously read. One of those books is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

I look forward to finishing this book and writing my take-aways, if for any other reason it is well over 1,000 pages long! Most of the books I have previously read were no longer than 300 pages, so it will be interesting to see when I finish it. Stay tuned.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Book Take-Aways • (5) Comments • Permalink

You have heard the saying ‘you are what you eat.’ But how about you are what you buy? Or the reverse? The latter question is the premise behind a great book Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are by Rob Walker.

In Buying In, Walker explores this relationship, or as he calls it dialogue, between what we buy and who we are. It is packed with examples of brands and consumer goods and the ways they interact with consumers, the very people who are on the selling side with the marketers and others who connect them with consumers. There are also many great terms that come from this book – from Pretty Good Problem describing a plethora of “pretty good” products to choose from, to Desire Code, which comprises all of the factors leading one to buy something to Murketing, a contraction of the words “murky” and “marketing” which are themes throughout the book.

My greatest takeaway from Buying In is the consumer can make – and sometimes demand – an individual connection with a product. Going away are the days of mass-produced and mass-marketed goods. The Internet has broken down the technical barriers between consumers and companies, and now companies need to realize this and converse with their customers. Technology alone won’t do it all, as there needs to be a fundamental realization first that a company wants to do this!

Another takeaway is consumers don’t want to feel like they have been sold something. Call it a win-win situation - or call it consumers don’t want to feel like they are at the bottom of a pipe of products being fed to them. Scion is cited as an example of this, where they took a non-traditional approach to reaching out to the Generation Y-ers, their target audience.

A final takeaway is that it may not be your product or service, rather how it is marketed. American Apparel moved form promoting their Los Angeles-based manufacturing and selling to wholesalers to retail stores selling hip clothing. Timberland created a professional shoe line to reconnect with their traditional market after growing a new base of younger, urban consumers.

Shortly after reading Buying In, I attended the Nokia OpenLab in Helsinki and saw in action a lot of what I read in Buying In. There were those who were Nokia mavens as well as those who have built businesses around Nokia products. Even Nokia has gotten into this by buying all of the Symbian operating system that powers their phones and turning it over to a non-profit foundation, open-sourcing it for all to develop on and extend. Where some may see this as a lack of control, Nokia doesn’t, and has profited well from this.

There are many other studies and examples in Buying In that get you thinking a lot about what you buy and why or what you sell and how. I highly recommend it to entrepreneurs and business people – large and small – as well as to those interested in why they may have the things they have.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Book Take-Aways • Business • (0) Comments • Permalink

As a new Dad, there is plenty to read out there. A book that is a “must read” is called “What To Expect When You're Expecting” or simply referred to as “the book.” If you saw the movie “Knocked Up” this is the book they were referring to. The idea behind these books is to inform you as much as possible before your baby arrives, and when it does, you will be prepared with information to take on any situation.

Have you seen how many baby books are out there? And what they cover you won’t possibly remember at 3:00 a.m. when your baby is screaming for a bottle. One day I put down “the book” when I got to the chapter of all the deadly diseases a baby can have. Not that I can do anything about any of them, of course.

These information-overload books are screaming for a different approach – a book that covers the basics, but with a sarcastic sense of humor. Ok, that last part is my personal preference. I found such a book in Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay, by Stefanie Wilder Taylor, a comedy writer and Mom. There were many takeaways from this for me, not only as a new parent but for life in general.

My greatest takeaway is that you can study, but nothing beats on the job training. Other than babysitting someone’s kid, there is no internship for being a parent. But there are internships available for just about every career option out there. Experience of some form beats none at all in most cases, providing the people involved have somewhat similar capacity.

Another takeaway is to budget for unplanned changes. In the case of a baby, this hit me most when I was tested with the functionality of some baby clothes, especially at late hours or when the kid wanted to take advantage of being outside of the womb and kick like crazy. An example that occurs for me quite often is with Web site design and development. Even though the delivered solution may be exactly to spec, once it is out there and in use, there may be desired changes to make it that much better, or fix something never originally considered. I would also apply this to home ownership.

A final takeaway on advice – consider yourself an employer and someone gives you a resume; file it as you never know when you need it. As a new parent, I get tons of advice daily. Some of it just does not resonate until you are in the moment when that advice applies. Keeping some of these things in the back of your mind and shuffling through them on occasion helps, whether it’s a screaming baby or screaming client.

Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay is certainly not a reference for everything that could possibly happen to your baby, and as extensive as it is the book "What to Expect" is still a must-read. But "Sippy Cups" is a great story tightly woven with humor and sarcasm and real life that I recommend to any first-time parents, or anyone that knows any first-time parents.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Book Take-Aways • Diversions • (1) Comments • Permalink