Now this is an environment for development | Hacker News Reader

Now this is an environment for development

thewonderfactory.com

26 pointsadriand21 comments

I don't know. Could be due to the special lighting or the extra-high-gloss-cleaning for the photoshoot - but that slideshow left a very cold and unpersonal impression on me.

Like a modern hotel; definitely stylish, but not really a place I could imagine feeling at home (which is the feeling I need to be most creative).

Exactly. "Comfy" was not the word that came to mind. It looks more like a showroom than a creation cove.

I think they tried very hard to make the place look organic, but you if look carefully everything just seems contrived. I think it's sort of the uncanny valley of interior decoration, which I see quite often these days.

It probably serves more as a function to impress clients than to actually inspire creativity.

If I were them I would've let the employees decorate their own spaces. Could've saved a bunch of money that way. I would've also chose a house with garden over Manhattan, but then again I don't run a consulting company.

My favourite quote: "where people can take a break from their computer screens, or stimulate creativity by changing their environment."

Stimulate creativity? What?

agreed! very pretentious. when i look at this space, i imagine immaculately-dressed people standing around congratulating themselves on how fabulous they are.

Holy overhead, batman! NYC rents are absurd as it is. Unless they got a great deal then they are chewing up major funds just on a place to sit.

They also have some of the most prestigious clients in each of their respected areas.

All mac, no dual monitors, they honestly put some sort of flame decal on that table, and minimalism is not one of their design philosophies.

In summary, needs more Helvetica.

Bleah. Also: why did I have to shrink the text size in order to read all the text in both text boxes on this page: http://www.thewonderfactory.com/news/index.php

Looks like a lot of the Yaletown loft offices in Vancouver.

I prefer some walls and more monitors, myself. But, I get the impression the advertising-y, designer-y type folks are happier with that style of setup.

Only one monitor per seat?

There is a monitor? I had to zoom in a lot to catch a glimpse of it.

Perhaps not in the first picture. They are clearly visible in the later parts of the slideshow.

Perhaps. Since I'm a non-artists mundane type, the work I would hypothetically be doing would be more important. All those pictures feel kinda tacked on, anyways.

All the money spent and they couldn't afford dual large monitors and at the very least cubes (not to mention private offices) for their developers?

Yeah, the lack of some massive displays struck me as odd too. Our offices are plain and boring but the walls of screens lit them up.

i wonder if people would ever get ANY work done. such plush surroundings would only make my eyes wonder.

and even if people WERE dedicated enough to get work done, wouldn't it imply that they'd just ignore all this fancy stuff?

Glorified cubicles.

Notice that the majority of the shots are of communal areas or conference rooms. There's a few shots of a "collaborative workspace" and another shot of part of an "open workspace". This is just a dressed up cubicle farm like all the others pervasive throughout the IT industry.

This is such an annoying trend because there's plenty of sound research that developers with individual offices are more productive (due to fewer interruptions, or at least a greater ability to control interruptions).

Say what you will about Joel Spolsky, the guy at least knows how to treat developers right by giving them real offices instead of yet-another-glorified-cubicle-farm: http://picasaweb.google.com/spolsky/FogCreekSNewOffice#

Actually, you have much better endorsements than Spolsky. 2 classics in software engineering also stress that individual offices are much better: Rapid Development, by Steve McConnell and Peopleware by Tom DeMarco.

Their walls may be prettier, but my monitor is bigger, and so is my second.

My monitors are bigger and so is my TV, but that doesn't matter.

You can get even more done by delegating work to be done on other people's monitors than your own :)

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