FreshCode

Zappos actually wants little things to go wrong so they can go over-the-top in fixing them. I would not be surprised if they intentionally engineered service failures.

Maxious, you make good points about reachability. We should be as open to criticism on every channel as we are in encouraging it. Right now we are focusing on our web app (krit.com/m) where customers can leave feedback for nearby venues when they see our signage. "Krit.com" is listed as a business on there, and we do respond to feedback. That being said, we should have a phone contact on there.

However, I disagree on the engaged customer phenomenon. Customers would rather have their problem resolved with amazing service than just vent about it on social networks with no resolution. This is bad for the customer and bad business. Managers would rather save face by comping your meal and resolving a problem that would otherwise go unnoticed (to them). If an amicable solution cannot be reached over Krit, then you can always go to Twitter or Facebook, but at least now there's a chance the issue will be resolved harmoniously.

I first experienced this when doing customer support for an online music store I built. A technically illiterate customer would email me with a simple question like, "How do I download my music?" even though the download links are right there. When I answered them with detailed instructions within 5 minutes, they would become evangelists for the store by recommending us to all their friends because of the "amazing service".

If those customers had spent just a minute figuring out how to find something they downloaded, I could not have helped them and they would not have become as loyal.

Hey Tom

I've actually played AirSpace and your product looks great. Sorry I lobstered* you in with the rest. The marketplace is an interesting concept - I wonder if you'll eventually earn more from that than your product?

I'll take a closer look at those startups. There may be a few undervalued ideas because their names are bad or copy is generic.

*Do consider changing the Lobster font. It's the new Comic Sans).

There's a reason TechCrunch passed on them. Except for Zagster (Bicycle Rental Marketplace), Tweaky (Marketplace for small website changes) and maybe RocketLease (Electronic Lease Applications), these startups strike me as painfully mediocre.

"Your password can't be longer than 16 characters." Is this from Hotmail?

Read Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug. http://www.amazon.com/Think-Common-Sense-Approach-Usability/...

Read everything on Jakob Nielsen's blog about Usability: http://useit.com/

It feels like someone inside Cupertino has been saying, "OK, it looks good!" more than they have been saying "No."

The Microsoft Touch Mouse looks nice. The snarky editorialized title doesn't do the blog post justice. Nowhere does Microsoft imply that these are a "new" type of input device. The article title only mentions, "New Windows 8-ready mice and keyboards..."

Just like Apple, it makes sense for Microsoft to sell accessories specific to its Surface offerings.

Like loading screens that go faster near the end? I don't know that making the wait time look worse than it already is (40m vs 30m) will please customers.

I wonder how this be could be applied to customer service, queues and waiting lines outside of loyalty card programs.

Wow, this is the first positive reported use-case I've heard for Windows 8 "in the wild". Can anyone corroborate this from a non-technical user experience?

Rock climbing.

If anything, Apple has shown us that design does matter and I feel like software (especially websites) is getting more usable over time. Your discontent over changing UIs seem like those of a long-time user upset by someone moving their cheese. I didn't like Chrome's spartan UI at first, but it won me over.

Why even mention the competition? We all know who the tablet incumbent is. I've always been bullish on Microsoft, but Ballmer... A truly great CEO could say something more subtle like, "We have our best people working on Surface and we think producers - executives, artists, developers and managers - will love our tablet offering, which we pioneered with Surface Table in 2007 and can now finally bring to the public in the beautiful, compact Surface. <sends MS Word document via email, smiling like a sir>."

Client-side encryption? I don't think that solves a real problem. If it's that sensitive, I would not be putting it on Dropbox anyway.

edit: be nicer.

I don't think anyone would classify "Get Listed on App Store" as a viral social marketing campaign.

:) It's a combination of two things: 1. The director, Wicus Labuschagne, is a personal friend. He was my first professional web client and needed an explainer video for his portfolio. 2. Here in South Africa the exchange rate is 8.10 ZAR/USD. A pint of beer is roughly 50% cheaper than a pint in LA.

I like how designers are beginning to feel compelled to point out the disconnect between the old Microsoft and the new. To me this signifies the impending reinvention of the Microsoft brand. Their development tools (like Visual Studio 2012) are so far ahead of anything out there that their new product designs delight without surprise. That being said, these proposed designs take minimalism too far.

I haven't shown HN yet, but I think our Krit explainer video could be on that list and cost only $550 to make: http://youtu.be/EcSbBb56niI?hd=1

I've been waiting for MS to wake up to cheaper (and more frequent) upgrades for a long time and I am happy to upgrade at that price.

I would wager MS wants to foster a stronger Windows App ecosystem and not necessarily App Store profits.

TortoiseHg is fantastic for Mercurial, but there are no comparable Git GUIs that I know of. Github for Windows looks nice, but it tends to be slightly unstable.

In my experience, open source GUIs for open tools generally have that unpolished "design by committee" feel of a Diablo 1 inventory hacker written in Visual Basic, so I can relate to the hate a little bit.

More contrast, please. I can barely see the green matches on my screen.

What's the best way to respond to religious knee-jerk comments?

All of these metrics are terrible for tracking productivity. Each one can be gamed and would become inversely correlated with productivity if there was any incentive to maximise them.

This reminds me of...Japanese karaoke. I feel sorry for Microsoft that this is going to be syndicated everywhere to the detriment of Azure, but it's probably funny in Norway. Is anyone on HN offended by this?

What problem does this solve? Sell benefits, not features. Also, the spacing is terrible. I'd take a standard Twitter Bootstrap over this any day.

Please make the "how it works" more prominent. I like the proffered benefit, "practice compassion", but the two screenshots don't really communicate what the product is or how it works.

This almost feels like the 5 Stages of Grief: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model