Building for Utopia
summary
Argues that many systems assume perfect users and shows concrete failures: a stovetop whose controls hide current state and a door whose handles lie to the user, a personal near-fire from leaving a burner on, and everyday software examples (vim exit panic, a Git shortcut fixed to accept lowercase/uppercase). Explains waterfall as a manufacturing process ill-suited to software, criticizes “just write correct code” thinking, and offers fixes: use your product, get aggressive feedback, and design to build for people who fail.
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Start
- 3:26The Importance of Turning Off the Stove
- 8:55Door Handles
- 9:22User Interface Bugs
- 14:22The Waterfall Model for Software
- 15:13Requirements
- 15:55Design Phase
- 16:45Implementation
- 17:17Verification
- 17:48Software Development
- 24:35Aggressive about Feedback
- 28:33Gamers and the Audience
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