Aug 7, 2022Software Developers, Code Should Not Be Your Only Point of CollaborationWe tend to learn to code at first as a solitary activity; at a keyboard, alone with our thoughts. But if coding eventually becomes part of our day job, it’s more likely we’ll be developing software together, as a team. …Software Development10 min readSoftware Development10 min read
Feb 22, 2022Why We Shouldn’t Design Software the Same Way We Design Physical ThingsDesigning and developing software is a complex undertaking. But we often make it harder than it needs to be by approaching it as if we were building a physical thing, and by mimicking the design practices associated with them. It seems the more ambitious the software we intend to build…Software Development5 min readSoftware Development5 min read
Oct 3, 2021Why the Most Useful Software Is Built BackwardsI learned to write software in much the same way as other developers, by coding ideas that appealed to me. I took my grand plans — the grander the better — broke them down into smaller pieces, then joined them together as code until I had something that worked. It…Software Development5 min readSoftware Development5 min read
Jan 3, 2019The Internet of Things… That Are Crying Out For a Better UI/UXI guess we could potentially connect most devices to the internet, hence the growing interest in the Internet of Things (IoT). Whether we gain much from doing so is another question. I recently had an IoT face-palm moment after hearing that a friend’s cat’s litter tray is now internet-enabled. He…Internet Of Things6 min readInternet Of Things6 min read
Dec 13, 2018Balance: Why Binary Decisions Are Often Suboptimal in Software EngineeringAs software engineers, we tend to make rather binary decisions, to favour clear-cut outcomes and black-or-white choices. I guess it’s in our nature. This applies when choosing technology and architecture, but it also extends to how we like to organise ourselves and our projects. We pick a serverless architecture or…Software Development2 min readSoftware Development2 min read
Published in UX Collective·Sep 22, 2018Why UX mockups shouldn’t be the primary focus when defining new product featuresI get it… We all like something we can point at and that’s why most discussions about new software products and features tend to focus upon UX mockups of those features. I guess it’s natural. Mockups are the first visual representation of the feature and how it might be used…UX3 min readUX3 min read
Aug 28, 2018Software Teams: Autonomous or Tightly-Aligned?(Written jointly by Ian Cackett & Sasha Bilton) A key consideration when managing multiple software teams is how much freedom and responsibility to allow each team over their technology choices, architecture and approach, versus insisting that they agree and align their decisions with other teams in the organisation. Most organisations…Software Development4 min readSoftware Development4 min read
Aug 18, 2018Make Complex Things Understandable“What is the most underrated skill in the software industry?”, someone recently asked me. “The ability to make complex things understandable”, I replied. (I know they were expecting something like “Scala”, “React”, “JavaScript” or “AWS”) But of all the things that I’ve found to be missing in software teams, an…Software Development4 min readSoftware Development4 min read
Published in UX Collective·Aug 13, 2018Why you should validate your UX proposals against data sourcesUser eXperience (UX) mock-ups are wisely used to drive the complex process of defining what a software product will do, from the perspective of its users: How it will look to them, how they will engage with it, and how they will use it to solve whatever problem / gap…Software Development4 min readSoftware Development4 min read
Aug 4, 2018What Lego, Meccano and Linka Taught Me as a Child That Made Me a Better Software EngineerI’m sure it can’t be pure coincidence that a large number of the people who are software engineers today grew up playing with toys such as Lego, Meccano and Linka. I can’t help but think that the countless hours I spent building, dismantling, playing, struggling and eventually understanding them contributed…Software Development5 min readSoftware Development5 min read
