your ui sucks

When I was 21 and the fifteenth employee at a dot com startup in 1996, I thought the best way to fit in with my predominantly male coworkers was to be “one of the guys”. Because I’m a perfectionist, I strove to “out-guy” the guys by escalating their crude, offensive remarks. I thought it would earn me approval. Instead, I ended up feeling powerless when my expletive-laden, sexualized banter was met with responses that made me uncomfortable. Sometimes they were remarks that personalized the abstract acts we were joking about, sometimes they were physical advances.

When I read accounts of the PyCon debacle that claim Adria Richards has no grounds to complain about dongle jokes because she’s made similar jokes in the past, I think about my behavior in my 20s, and how maladapted it is to my career in my 30s. I think about how I believed I had to make a choice between being entirely one way (letting dick and fart jokes turn into rape and incest jokes) or entirely another (disconnected from my colleagues). Boundaries aren’t about having the door completely open or completely shut – they’re about finding a comfortable, consistent happy place where we can maintain mutually fulfilling relationships.

My challenge is to find that happy place, but I think everyone’s challenge is to accept that people are flawed, complex human beings who are going to have different boundaries than we do. Setting aside my feelings about her response, Adria is allowed to be offended by things that may seem inconsistent with her past behavior.

I’ve been reminded that as a woman working in tech, I don’t have to be a dichotomous screen onto which my colleagues project either “unassailable virgin” or “complicit whore”. I don’t have to be a caricature to be accepted. And regardless of what I’ve said or done in the past, I can call shenanigans when I need to.

So apparently QUOTES are “special” characters now. It’s called ESCAPE, Morgan Stanley. And you make me want to do it.

Seriously, people. I thought we covered this, oh, back in 1997. Really, this page? It’s called a:visited, motherfucker, do you speak it?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/duncan/4588314213/

Luke Wroblewski talks about “forgiving inputs” in form design – allowing the user a little wiggle room in what format she wants to enter data.

I was immediately reminded of this yesterday as I was filling out an application for a creative staffing agency (I know, but a girl’s dog has to eat). I was asked to enter dates for past employment using a text input field and a calendar widget. I bypassed the calendar widget and entered MM/YY values, only to see an error on form submit that MM/DD/YYYY was required. Because I’m a lazy bastard and barely skim text, including error messages, I corrected to MM/DD/YY, only to be told that the year needed to be FOUR digits. Sigh.

So, the first problem here is validation – inline validation is dead easy to do, and it saves the user so much time and frustration. There’s really no excuse not to use it.

The second problem is how unforgiving the date entry fields were. Why can’t you append the “20” onto the “12” I submitted? Do you REALLY think I worked for that tech company in 1912?

Lastly, there’s the issue of function. I entered what seems standard for a resume – the month and year – and was told the date was required. I don’t know the date of my last period (much to my doctor’s chagrin), much less the date of a gig I finished a year ago. What value does the date have to the contract agency, other than perhaps forcing me to prove how desperate I am for work by scrabbling through old invoices and check stubs to forensically determine the EXACT dates of my employment?

In this case, asking for an exact date serves no purpose, and is inconsistent with standard practice for the closest analog, a resume. Don’t ask for information you don’t need. It just adds to the user’s burden and encourages her to bail or – in my case – enter completely made up data.

Side note: bad UI design by a creative staffing agency is kind of like a misspelled online personals ad – I’ll still meet you for coffee, but you’re going to have some work to do to overcome a bad first impression. Also, you’re buying the coffee.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/inkel/58518662/

The recent change to Instagram’s terms of use and the ensuing outcry against yet another online company claiming ownership of our intellectual property (if one can call millions of sepia-toned photos of coffee “intellectual property”) got me thinking about the history of our expectations of internet services.

We, as consumers, have been trained to expect online services to be free. We get our email delivered for free, our photos and documents stored online for free, our games and crosswords for free. At the same time, we accept that we have to pay for stamps to mail our Christmas cards, cough up rent at the storage place to stash our old furniture, and pay for card games or the Times (if you’re a masochist) to go head-to-head with Will Shortz. When these services are virtual, they no longer have value for us – at least, not a value we’re will to exchange money for.

Instead, we’re exchanging ourselves for these services. I’ve long heard the saying “If you’re not paying for the product, you ARE the product.” Facebook is evidence of this, as is Google search, and now Instagram. At first, we were just exchanging our eyeballs, accepting that looking at ads was the price we paid. And that made sense, since we’ve been sitting through commercials on TV for yonks.

But now that we’ve given up more and more of our personal information in exchange for these “free” services, the ads are capable of emulating us and our friends and family, and insinuating themselves into our media. It’s an uncanny valley of “sponsored” and “promoted” content, slipped into the ticker-feed of updates from the people we know so seamlessly that it bypasses our defenses.

While the Instagram TOU is not unique, there are aspects of it (the implied consent of parents to share location content of minors is especially squirm-inducing) that might push users past their comfort zone. Personally, I’m making the jump to a paid Flickr pro account. Hopefully by paying for a product, I’ll be less likely to become one.

photo: kevin dean

Reading an article in the Washington Post about Mitt Romney’s post-election life, I felt empathy for him for the first time. I may disagree with most of what he and his party stand for, but as I read, I started to relate to a man who is learning how to live in the aftermath of a completely unanticipated failure.

The sense of importance conveyed by a Secret Service detail was gone in a moment. There was no public office or job waiting for him after losing the election. After years of frenetic work and striving, he woke up one day with no goal or direction. It must have been a shock.

I can relate, because it’s similar to how I felt when I finally admitted the company I’d started had failed, and I took the final steps to wind it down.

I, too, isolated myself. I felt - still feel - a great deal of shame at my failures. I can understand why he’s seemed to avoid his party – feelings of abandonment and betrayal are hard to work with when the wounds are still fresh. Stepping outside the milieu or clique that cast you out is a defense mechanism against the feelings of inadequacy that are inevitable when you’re surrounded by those accomplishing what you couldn’t. Especially when it was your own misstep that made you a pariah.

I’ve been contracting, because it’s a fittingly uncommitted limbo for someone who feels the strangling weight of empty days pressing the life out of me but can’t imagine going back to a “straight” job where I have to play by someone else’s rules and risk the vulnerability of being a full-fledged part of a team. Contracting allows me to have one foot in and one out - I contribute, but I’m not invested. It obviates the pesky imminent tragedy of hope.

While I don’t have nearly the financial resources of the Romneys, I have the luxury of choosing when, where, and if I work. For a little while, at least. I’m grateful for that, and should take advantage of that freedom by committing to helping others in some way. If I think about why I haven’t yet, I start to feel exposed and raw and the risk of failing others again shuts me down. Volunteering is a humbling act in many ways.

Regardless of what he stands for, Mitt Romney is a human being struggling with a heartbreaking transition. I wish him peace and courage as he finds a new path forward. Who knows, maybe he’ll start another company.

flickr user adria.richards

Recently I was in a meeting with a client and another independent contractor. We were discussing a site that used some of the same mechanics they wanted to use on the project I’d been hired to work on.

Quickly, the topic turned to the founder.

“Did you see that video of her?” “Could you believe someone who wears something that revealing could create a site like that?” Everyone in the room, including the only other woman, picked apart this funded startup founder’s hair, makeup, and clothes. All expressed disbelief that a woman who obviously takes pains to look attractive was capable of running this company.

Brogrammers (which, IMO, are vanishingly rare in the wild) have made it acceptable to be a male programmer who cares enough about his appearance to work out and dress stylishly.  The same doesn’t hold true for women.

If girls are taught that they have to choose between being ambitious and being attractive, they will choose the latter. Because they’re bombarded daily with the message that “attractive” is the best thing they can be.

So THAT happened.

First, Kim Polese and Sheryl Sandberg are only similar or remarkable in that women in high tech startups are still rare, fifteen years later. Which is pathetic.

Second, the “top xx most [superlative] people in the country/world” lists have always been facile, column-filling listicles. Who else appeared on this list with Kim Polese? Don Imus, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, and Dilbert. Kim Polese’s appearance on Time’s most influential list in 1997 is about as significant as Jeremy Lin’s in this year’s. Both captured what excites us at the moment, tapping into the zeitgeist to sell copies.

Third, would Eric Jackson have told Sheldon Sandberg to keep his head down? Doubtful.

The fact that women working in the rarified intersection of high tech and entrepreneurship are still so rare is EXACTLY why Sheryl needs to keep speaking up. Until men like Eric Jackson stop feeling compelled to slap us down as uppity tokens, we need women like Sheryl Sandberg urging us to lean in and take our seat at the table. Otherwise, this kind of bullying will keep yet another generation of women fearing the spotlight of success.

The most important thing I’ve done this year didn’t happen at a startup weekend, or a boardroom, or an incubator. It happened in an elementary school classroom when I helped a fourth grade girl write her first web page in HTML.

It doesn’t matter how much money we raise, how much press coverage we get. What matters is showing the next generation that they can, indeed, hack their environment. Teach them that it’s more fun to create than consume. Give them the tools to figure things out for themselves.

I can’t imagine that I’m going to win any awards or sell a company to Google in 2012 (if ever). But even if I did, it would still pale in comparison to the feeling I got seeing a nine-year-old figure out on her own how to close an HTML tag.

(photo credit)

Now that I’m several months out from my experience at PIE, I’m ready to talk about what I did right, but more importantly, what I did wrong. And I did a LOT wrong. So, here’s my take on what NOT to do when you’re in a startup incubator.

We were one of the older teams and didn’t feel like we fit in. We isolated ourselves within the office and didn’t participate in much of the off-campus socializing. We were the nerds who convinced ourselves we didn’t want to hang out with the cool kids anyway – except that EVERYONE was a nerd.

You’re there to learn, and the best way to learn is from others. Other entrepreneurs are your support system, your family, and your warm intros. They’re also rad dudes, so don’t be anti-social. 

Our team joked amongst ourselves about being the slowest antelope in the pack. It was an uncomfortable joke because we always felt like it was true. We weren’t as far along as some of the other teams, nor were we as experienced when it came to business. The reality is that no one else was keeping score.

I kept seeing other startups in our class get things we didn’t have – a pitch deck designed by professionals, intros to mentors and investors, advisors with cred who lent their names to the cause. I was pissed that other teams were getting preferential treatment, until I realized they were asking and I wasn’t.

No one’s going to read your mind and offer you what you need on a silver platter. It’s your job to figure it out and ask for it.

PIE gave us $18K. There’s still $11K in the bank. If we’d spent that money on laptop stickers, contract devs, event sponsorships, branded dogshit bags, ANYTHING, we might have gotten more traction. Even if it hadn’t worked, I would have known that we’d tried. That money never got to do anything for our company when we needed it to – before demo day.

We had talked about having a vesting schedule in our incorporation papers, but never got around to it – it just didn’t seem pressing. Marriages don’t fail just because you have a pre-nup. Cover your ass, even if you can’t ever see breaking up with your co-founders.

We knew the term “mentor whiplash” before we got into PIE, but didn’t really understand it. Advice is not instruction, especially from someone who doesn’t know your business very well (or at all).

A startup incubator is a tremendous opportunity. You’re giving up a chunk of your company. Make sure you get as much as you can in return.