Suckbusters (to do with software)

[cjolley]

Because software shouldn't suck. It should Just Work.

About Suckbusters.com

This blog comes David S Platt, author of the book Why Software Sucks ... and What You Can Do About It. It and I are dedicated to the proposition that software shouldn't suck; instead, it should Just Work. This site will show examples of software and web sites that just work and others that don't. Publicly praising the good ones and ridiculing the bad ones will lead to more of the former and fewer of the latter. I need your help. Please send me examples of really good and really bad software design, using the contact link on this page. To paraphrase Arlo Guthrie in “Alice’s Restaurant,” if only I do it, people will think I’m crazy (but you knew that already). If three people do it, they’ll think it’s an organization. And if 50 people do it, they’ll think it’s a movement. And it will be, and I'll call it the It Just Works Movementtm. So come join me. We’ll make the software world into what it can be, should be, has to be.

I would love it if this got some traction.

[TnT]

Full disclosure: I am a software developer by profession and I haven't read his book, so I am only going by the blog. I took a pretty cool UI class in college which delved mostly into how to work with users to design better modes of interaction, not how do we make things look pretty. I do not consider myself a UI designer though.

I'm going to play a little devil's advocate.

There is a major flaw with his arguments. A lot of it seems to be of the type "this is bad because it doesn't do X the way I think it should be" is EXACTLY what the developers do and what he, and most people, complains about. We (as in me as well) do this and its normal -- advocate for users like yourself.

Better examples involve an entire system and user experience from start to finish. Take an actual goal, say, "Find two good links to canker sore cures." Then from end-to-end show how one interface is better than the other or compare the weaknesses and strengths.

While I do agree there is a lot of bad code out there, a large chunk of that isn't due to programmers and software designers.

Truly delving into user experience and designing software to match a target audiences workflow requires a tremendous amount of time and energy. Businesses require deadlines and costs that don't always allow the developers to do as much research, prototyping and user testing as they should. For software that targets an overall audience and requires massive array of functions, such as a an OS, that type of testing, which still should be done, is never going to cover everyone.

Everyone picks on Winblows. But really does Mac's [P}OSes just work? In my experience, not any more so than Winblows. Actually this made me realize something. The reason why I like Linux is because I can invest a lot of time at the beginning to setup (which in most people's opinion means it doesn't "Just Work"), BUT once I get Linux rolling after that it "Just Works."

Dang I had more to say, but got distracted... oh well maybe I'll post more later.

[Brian Ellis]

Having been a software developer in a past life (and a beta tester of both ECAD and video software), I can confidently say, without even reading the blog, that the biggest reason for dicey software is pressure from the commercial guys. Software developers tend to be perfectionists; they try to foresee everything that is likely to glitch (but never do, do they?). When you have a software that has taken a year or more to develop - and thus cost a fortune - the bean-counters start to see it as a money-hole-in-the-ground and want some return on the investment. They apply pressure to the bossman who says it must be released within three months. So the alpha version suddenly is renamed as beta and, after two weeks, and a few reports back, a few bugs are cured. This process usually introduces a few more bugs and there is no time for the authors to even attempt to make it idiot-proof, but thus the Release Candidate is born and the sales department get excited, as they see RC as the finished product. Meanwhile, the developers (and beta testers) tear their hair out by the roots in frustration, knowing full well that nothing is as it ought.

[dbdg]

....

Have you been reading my svn commits for my latest web application, you just described it perfectly.