The 37 Signals manifesto was definitely written to get individuals and small teams fired up and ready to get to work. The book is an interesting artifact. It reminds me a bit of Ray Bradbury’s Zen and the Art of Writing. The short chapters give it a meditative aesthetic that is surprisingly persuasive when combined with a strong vision,
People have sometimes objected to the term “maker” because of its generality. A maker could be a cryptographer or a whittler, a writer or an artist. But Getting Real suggests a holistic approach to…well, making, one that embraces a unified approach to product design, prototyping, customer interaction, copywriting, internal communication, and community engagement. They’re a small group of specialized generalists, difficult to peg to traditional roles but comfortably at home in their own design niche.
My sense was that Microsoft lurked between the pages of this book like some ghastly haunt from the past (i.e., 1992). While 37 Signals mentions Google by name, Redmond is simply the unnamed opposite of everything they recommend. Microsoft is bloat. Microsoft is Silicon Valley. Microsoft is the gold-mastered CDs in shrink wrap. Microsoft is the dark side of Metcalf’s Law. It’s an appealingly stark dichotomy, and a persuasive reason to ditch the waterfall and go agile.
Takeaways
If I had to take away only two concepts from Getting Real, they would be:
- Start with the minimum.
- Build the frontend first.
There’s an inherent appeal to simplicity. Google used to know that. (And still kind of does.) It’s actually surprisingly difficult to stick to a simple vision of a thing, especially when you’re working with content management systems and frameworks that automatically tack on timestamps, metadata, and poll widgets. More is not necessarily better.
Building the frontend first forces another kind of discipline: it makes you look at your product from the perspective of your customers. (Or, to be more academy, the project from the perspective of its users.) This fits in with the concept of persona we discussed last week. As far as your users are concerned, the UI is the app, so don’t make it an afterthought. So I’ll put together the front steps before I work on the back parlor.
Shameless plug
I’ll conclude with a plug for the responsive design workshop on Wednesday. We’ll be using Bootstrap to create designs that change based on the width of the screen. (It’s actually pretty cool when you see it in action.)
See you all Wednesday!
