Engineering Fun

This week's Flyover Effect podcast discussed an idea that is too often overlooked in the development of pretty much everything: Fun.

I often see a "lack of fun" in software- the program that was built to do a specific job well, but has an interface that is ugly, complicated, and hard to use. All of the build energy went into making the features work, but zero thought went into the person who has to use the thing.

A corollary: If users of your software have a bunch of sticky notes on their monitors to help them with their work, you need a redesign of the UI.

Fun design encourages a user to explore the software, not run from it as soon as the task is completed.

This carries forward into every product and service. If something is pleasant to deal with, people will do more with it, and thus spend more money. If something is hard, difficult and unpleasant, it will be avoided.

Too often businesses can't step out of their own shoes to view how the public interacts with them, and thus can't make the changes needed to up the "Fun" quotient. A lack of fun holds them back.

Function

I'm a heavy rss user, mostly through Google Reader. I find reader a very easy tool to use.

But it's missing one function: an easier way to "Mark as Read" everything that is unread across all of my rss feeds. There is an option to Mark As Read for each rss feed, and its has some function: items older than a day, items older than a week, etc., although I think that's too coarse.

What would really help me after a weekend off the grid or a couple of days at the office when I've been deep in the weeds would be a function to let me Mark As Read everything, globally, in one action, with finer degrees of choice: 12 hours, 24, 48, 72, etc.

Or just let me clear out every single feed in one click, so I can start with a clean slate.

I understand that much of the joy of Google products is in their simplicity, and that trying to add "one more feature" leads you to monstrosities like Office, but these doesn't seem like a slide too far down the slippery slope.

Peter

Update: Reader Mark points out that I am one big pile of FAIL.

If one views their feed under the "All Items" view, one can then has the same Mark As Read options one has on the individual feed level.

I never had a reason to use the All Items view- that has big benefits. Hat Tip to Mark.

Peter