Heard about this book since long but read it recently,and when I started reading it,enjoyed it thorougly.
Getting Real consists of 16 chapters and 91 essays by 37signals.The book does a laudable job of revealing the philosophy and the work behind many of the most important innovative products. It provides effective insight to a very elaborate and summarized SDLC process; it also covers most of the real life challenges.The book claims, It’s an invaluable resource to Marketers, Enterprenuers, Designers, Developers, Executives, Marketers or anyone who wants to develop faster web Applications. Real life implementation processes and success stories are covered in every nook and corner of the book. You may not agree with everything they believe but some of the essays are worth a read.
Some of the interesting take aways:
1.Feature Selection
The book emphasizes on minimalist approach rather than a bunch of features and functionality . Customer will decide what’s best for them instead of the stakeholders. Focus on customer satisfaction by building what they want and quickly iterating the flaws. Put yourself at the users shoes.
Cut the things that doesn’t matter and provide only the essentials. This leads to high productivity for the designers as well as the programmers. The user researches are mostly focused on what the customers wanted and a very litle or no importance is given to the users.
2.Funding and unique design
The book also provides solutions to funding issues observed with may start up companies. Say no –no to non-essential feature and do not clutter with useless features. Do not compete with other products in the market with adding ten more features but design something utterly unique.
3.Launch on time and on budget
Tweak the scope not time and money.
4.The number 3
Three is the magic number for project team membership and idea generation. Start with a developer, a designer, and someone who can roam between both worlds. Bigger team size increases the communication channel.
5.Change is the key factor
The book is focused on the benefits of small companies and the disadvantages of big organizations. Change is the key factor to keep the ball rolling.
6.Originality
To be original and yourself is the mantra.
7.Ignore details at the early stage
It is not only about the product vision that is important but to re state the need statement by lateral thinking. Detailing/perfection can be done later; getting the job working is the mantra. Working from large to small and iterative approach works out fine.You need to be at the right place at the right time, brooding about future problems will kill your valuable time and energy which can be utilized on something more important.
8.You are on the bus or off the bus.
Focus your product on the target audience; do not try to launce the product for everybody, while trying to please everyone. Nobody gets satisfied.
9.Personification of the Product
One liner personification of the product always helps since your product constantly speaks to you customers. You can design the interface keeping in mind the personality traits.
10.The ideas are useless unless it is executed.
Get real data from the users and improvise based on the real data.Provide some beta feature alongside the real application.People make sure they are not making mistakes in front of the camera.
11. RSS feeds can be better utilized than only to get blog updates.
Provide RSS feed for the new launch of products. Customers will not have to check out the site always for updates regarding the product but they can always check the newsreader. Subscribe to news feeds about your competitors;Sunscribe to PubSub, Technorati, Feedster.
12. Provide freebies
To attract more customers always provide some freebies, many companies do so for example Apple, Star bucks and many retails stores. This is very good way to get noticed.
13.Easy on and easy go
Sign up and cancellation should be a painless process. Do not go for long-term sign ups and contracts. Monthly basis of contract works better.There should be flexibility for the customers to leave and come back as per their wish.When people manage their own information it builds reliance.14. Hollywood style, teaser, preview and then launch
Include tiptoe preview about your product in sites like Boing Boing, Slashdot, Digg Links etc. This attracts a lot of traffic, and the page rank goes up in google. Provide a promotional site including overview, tour, screen-captures and videos, manifesto, case studies, buzz, forum, pricing and sign up, web log.
15.Meetings
Meetings are considered to be an integral part of a corporate software life cycle development, but the book provides a different view. ‘Meeting kills your time’. Use phone and mail as far as possible. Meetings schedule and subject often drifts to off subjects. The book provides a very easy and effective solution to this, a timer to remind you when to stop discussing further.
16.Motivation
Motivation and celebrations are very important to keep the work going. If the employees are not motivated enough to work then they will not deliver up to their potential.
17.Hire late and later
As the brooks’ law states: ‘Adding people to a late software project makes it later’ – Fred brooks. The book focuses on hiring the right talent than hiring more number of mediocre employees. Mediocre people cannot produce the best results.
18.Work with a test drive
Resume, work samples etc does not provide whether the person is a best fit in the organization or he/she will develop the right chemistry between the team members.
19.Actions and not words
Execution is equally important as designing. Hire people who have the zeal to towards producing quality. Apart from the work their culture standpoint and social match also is equally important. Find out from their involvement in social forums about their views.
20.On User Interface Design: Interface first
Designing first is flexible as it can be changed sooner rather than later.
21.Epicenter design
Design the most essential element first and then the second and so on and so forth. It saves a lot of time and energy and the end result is always fulfilling.
22.Knowledge sharing
It is an important to write articles in blogs, books and making the product known to the worlds to promote a product. This helps to get the targeted inbound traffic from search engines and bloggers who share it with their readers. Keep a check on your logs through the important sites such as Technorati,feedster etc.Provide feedback to the negative comments as well.You may turn complainers into evangelists.
23.Design the blank slate
Most of the UI are designed keeping in mind the data but do not avoid the UI when there is no data.First impression is crucial.Include tutorials and help blurbs, provide sample screenshot of the page populated with data, set user expectations,and answer important questions.
24.Design for when things go wrong
If the design does not work when the customers needed the same ,it will create an everlasting impression so be thoughtful on this issue as well.
25.Intelligent Inconsistency
Sometimes elements are provided in the page because of inconsistency and standards but it may not be true in all context.
26.Every letter matters
Use the users language and avoid jargons
27.One Interface
Admin screens are generally not given much importance as the end user screens,plug in the admins screens to the main application.
28.Product upgradation
Encourage customers to upgrade an account by telling them the reason of unavailability of upload and the benefits of paid upgradation. Provide something for free to experience the product; once the users are hooked, they are more likely to upgrade the paid plans.
29.Reduce the gap between support and development teams
Barrier between the support and the development team to be dropped.
30.Personify your product
Draw a character sketch of your product, as it is the interface between you and your customers round the clock.
31.What is in a name?
Name your application that describes its function well, rather than ultra descriptive names.
32.Training
As we do not require any training to use yahoo, google or Amazon products; similarly aim to design software that requires no manuals.
33.Be willing to say no to your customers
Not everything your customer suggests is correct, refuse to add things that are not important.
Inform about the bad news to the customers. Openess, honesty, and transparency build trust and credibility.
34.Great Excecution
Every one ideates,blogs but the success depends on the execution.
I could not wait to read this book and got it straight from US, the moment this book was launched. The book’s author is Rohit Bhargava and it is forwarded by Guy Kawasaki, who brags on the book’s what, how and why of brand personality. This book is all about how to use ‘personality’ as a key differentiators in marketing your company or product.
