User>Driven

A colleague at work sent this send up of Scrum and other development methodologies of the moment. I couldn't resist sharing.

Have you noticed a tendency for successful Open Source projects to become less free over time? I sure have. Recently JBoss adopted MySQL's strategy of only offering support for it's licensed Enterprise version. And, of course, MySQL itself has just been bought by big, bad Oracle.

I usually get a kick out of the tech comic Geek And Poke. I thought this one and this other one were particularly apropos. 

Well, the votes are in and, unlike in the Democratic primaries, the winners and losers are clear from the voting. Thanks to everyone who nominated their most and least favorite products and services of 2007 and to everyone who voted on those nominations, either publicly via comments or privately via email.

Apple Wins the 2007 User>Driven Hall of Fame

With multiple nominations for Leopard, the iPhone, the iPod Touch and AppleTV, Apple had the critical mass to lift them head and shoulders among others. Yes, Apple is a company and not a product or a service, but the consistency of nominations and votes for their products and services prompted me to award them the title collectively.

"This is easy. The best product is Apples' Leopard OS. The worst is Vista. I would have said the iPhone is the best, but the opportunity to compare / contrast Apple and MS for each of their OS releases was too compelling."

"iPhone anyone??"

"I'd have to second (or maybe third) the iPhone as best. If this is truly a competition of design then it wins hands down. The small technical and pricing issues with it don't come anywhere close to outweighing the elegance of the UI and user experience. That said, I'm waiting (seemingly forever) for the 3G version :)"

"ON THE POSITIVE side, I'm going to nominate the iPod Touch, especially in light of the software upgrade announced on Tuesday. As soon as Some Bright Mind figures out how to rig an audio in microphone and get VOIP working on it, it will become my must-have device."

"I'm going to go ahead and cast my ballot for Leopard. I'm really most intrigued by its contrast with Vista, the way it shows off what an OS can do if it's not hobbled by coming from Microsoft."

HONORABLE MENTION goes to the Blueline Power Cost Monitor for the greenest product nominated. I used this at home and with what I learned I was able to reduce my electricity usage by about 25% on a sustainable basis. By translating usage into dollars in real time, it quickly helps you learn what sucks the money out of your wallet and look for ways to save.

Samsung u540 V CAST Music Phone Wins 2007 User>Driven Hall of Shame

There was enough complaining about this one particular low-cost music phone from Samsung that it had to be the winner overall. (It was nominated twice in the first two responses to the contest announcement.)

"Every time I pick it up I accidentally engage two or three different buttons. Most times, my fumbling gets me to one step short of snapping a photo. And if you are not careful, it will snap shut on you while you are trying to open it to answer the phone"

"Worst product is my wife's Samsung cell phone."

"I keep my votes to the...Samsung phone (worst), as it has only proved itself worse every day."

DISHONORABLE MENTION goes to iTunes movie rentals for their 24-hour policy. Renting movies right from your TV or your Mac and moving them easily between devices seems like a dream come true - unless you are one of those people who have a hard time finding two hours at a stretch to watch an entire movie (and who doesn't?). Pause your movie until tomorrow then try to pick it up again on a different device and poof! It's gone.

Nomination Awards 

As promised, User>Driven t-shirts go out to those who nominated the winners. Glen was the first to mention Apple in his post about Leopard vs. Vista. Gina (my sister - full disclosure) jumped in early with the Samsung u540. Congratulations and thanks for playing our game!

Thanks to Steve Johnson at Pragmatic Marketing for the pointer to a concise Wired Wired summary of a Cornell University study (which they apparently picked up from The Atlantic - yes, that is a lot of references) revealing just how bad Americans are at math.

Because we tend to use precise numbers for small amounts and round off very large numbers (lots of zeros), [the study suggests] sellers can actually con consumers into thinking a price is smaller than it is by replacing those zeros with other digits. - from Wired's summary

The effect apparently goes beyond the familiar phenomenon of 99 cents looking more than a penny less than a dollar. When large numbers are involved (think home prices), apparently $249,673 looks like less than $249,000. The study suggests this because our brains are wired for precision with small numbers and rounding off with large ones. Ergo, precise numbers must be smaller, right? (The Cornell folks claim to have eliminated alternative explanations such as precise numbers signaling unwillingness to negotiate.)

The authors then examined more than 27,000 real-estate transactions on Long Island and in South Florida and discovered the same effect at work in real-life deals. In South Florida, having at least one zero at the end of the list price lowered the final sale price by about 0.72 percent compared with houses listed at a similar price, three zeros lowered it by 0.73 percent, and each additional zero lowered it another 0.39 percent. - from The Atlantic's summary

Bear that in mind when you are selling your next house or pricing your product. 0.72% of a $400,000 sale is enough for a couple of plasma TVs for the new abode.

Of course it should be no surprise that Americans are bad at math. Las Vegas would be just another dry, hot southwest town if that weren't so and state governments wouldn't have the lottery to generate revenue from. 

Thank you to everyone who wrote in nominations for the 2007 User>Driven Hall of Fame and Shame. We have 14 nominations for the Hall of Fame and 7 for the Hall of Shame. Post your votes below as comments by Saturday, February 9th. The votes will be counted and winners declared on the 10th. The original nominators of the winning products or services will receive User>Driven t-shirts from Zazzle.com!

Nominees for the 2007 Hall of Fame

• Traditional kitchen Egg slicer
  
• Black & Decker 18V Pivot Vac portable vacuum cleaner
• WordPress blog hosting service
• GM OnStar auto safety and security system
  
• Apple MacOS Leopard operating system software
  
• Apple iPhone connected device
  
• Apple iPod Touch wifi MP3 player
• AppleTV media server
  
• Original Microsoft Zune wifi MP3 player
  
• Eyefi 2-gig SD memory card with built-in 802.11 wireless
• Blueline Power Cost Monitor
• DD-WRT open source wireless router firmware
  
• Windows Home Server software
  
• Google Apps online applications

• Samsung u540 v cast music phone
• Apple iPhone connected device
  
• Apple iChat video chat service
• Apple iTunes movie rentals
  
• Microsoft Windows Vista operating system software
  
• Yahoo! online services
• 2008 Honda Accord automobile exterior design
  

Some of you may have noticed a few additions in the above lists. I've added my own nominations to both lists, things that impressed me (favorably or un-) in 2007.

I've nominated AppleTV for the Hall of Fame because it's worked so well for me as a music, video and photo server. It really has been a set-it-and-forget-it device for me from day 1. I wrote a blog entry on it back in March '07. I liked it then and I like it all the more as Apple has added new features. In particular, I was pleased when Apple announced movies (and TV shows, I hope eventually) for rent instead of for purchase through iTunes and directly through AppleTV. In my original comments I suggested that Apple should allow me to download content directly from the device instead of always requiring me to go to my Mac and use iTunes and then sync. They've listened to customers like me and gone and done that via a software upgrade. (Steve Jobs even mentioned customer feedback on this feature in his MacWorld 2008 keynote speech.) That's user-driven!

A feature of this same new service pushed me to add iTunes movie rentals to the Hall of Shame nominees, though. I approve of renting these kinds of bits, but the time limits on rentals make no sense to me. Rentals last up to 30 days from the time of download and 24 hours from the time you begin watching. I think a simpler model would be to allow you to watch it all the way through 1-3 times. This would prompt people to buy and download content that they mean to watch someday without worrying about it expiring before they get around to it. I think people will become reluctant to sign up for season passes to TV shows, for example, unless they religiously watch the shows as they arrive. The 30-day restriction bothers me less, though, than the 24-hour one. I personally have a trouble watching a 2-hour movie in one sitting. I have kids and it's hard for my wife and I to sit down to watch something until late in the evening, by which time we usually only have an hour or so before we have to go to bed. We have a good thing going now with Netflix where we can watch half of a movie, find a good place to pause, and pick the other half up the next evening. The Apple rental model, though, would cause the movie to expire just as we were sitting down to watch it on day 2. With the 30-day restriction in place, I just can't fathom the purpose of the 24-hour window. As far as I can see, it accomplishes nothing but keeping me away. This is a common restriction (Comcast OnDemand works the same way), but I had hoped for a more thoughtful approach from Apple.

I've also nominated the 2008 Honda Accord's new sheet metal for the Hall of Shame. This is a popular car that's been accused of blandness for many years, and I am assuming that Honda decided they needed to liven up the design a bit as they did with the smaller Civic. I personally find the new design simply ugly, however. They've taken an elegant and simple design and made it look bulky and complicated. It looks sporty from a few specific angles, but from most it looks quite awkward. The design is similar to, though edgier than, the new Toyota Camry with similar squared-off lower bodywork meant, I assume, to look like the custom bodywork you see on tuner cars. Given these cars are usually sold to more mature folks, though, this seems an like odd design direction. Maybe I'm just getting old. There are also design cues in the high beltline and overall bulk from the very successful Chrysler 300, and in the deep crease along the Honda's flanks and the bulbous rear on both cars that seem lifted directly from Chris Bangle's work at BMW - neither of which have impressed me.

See the reader comments at the bottom of the 2007 Hall of Fame and Shame announcement for background on why each of the other nominees should be considered. Post your votes as comments below by this Saturday and we'll soon find out what products and services you think were the best- and worst-designed in 2007. Thanks!