Seems like Pair Programming is “all the rage” lately in my circles. I haven’t exactly done it before but after hearing about the success and rapid knowledge growth amongst those that pair program…I was almost dying to try it! Especially after i saw David Chelimsky and Corey Haines at WindyCityRails in Sept 2009. I saw them pair and do BDD with Rspec/Cucumber and it was so fascinating, It was like I was watching a ballet as they hopped from RSpec to Cucumber and back and forth. I was like, wow…I wish I was that good! I would have paid good money for a recording of that so I could watch it again and again! I see Corey Haines traveling around pairing with people too. Some people get together and play cards, but Corey gets together to code!

So ok, I like code, I like people, I want to try it! I live a little south of Chicago so its a long commute and it seemed everyone was so busy to pair in person when I asked. I asked on Devchix mailing list for suggestions on how to do pairing online. I had found a few, and the group had some good suggestions. I even had a volunteer to try it with me! This week aimee and I set a few hours aside to try it and see if we could do it!

This article was also sort of “paired” as it was written from my perspective with input and suggestions from aimee!

We asked on Devchix mailing list for suggestions on how to do pairing online. I had found a few, and the group had some good suggestions. I even had a volunteer to try it with me! This week aimee and I set a few hours aside to try it and see if we could do it!

After introductions on Skype we set about getting a shared environment in which to code together. Ideally, we wanted some kind of desktop sharing so we could run tests, console and editor.

We had heard of a few tools and got suggestions from the devchix list:

IChat desktop sharing - we couldn’t get this to work, we did different things and it would appear to connect but then it failed. I tried to mess with settings for Sharing on mac, but nothing doing.

Rio seems to be a library to make collaborative apps, not to use in a pair programming environment.

BeSpin was hard to use.. we couldn’t figure out exactly how to use it. It almost seemed to offer to import the git repository we were working on, but then it said it only supports Subversion and Mercurial, not git.

SubEthaEdit worked but we would have to open each file individually and share each file… unless I was missing something. This would be fine for collaborating on a single file but then we could not share the test runs, terminal commands or view the browser together.

Etherpad - we didn’t end up trying this but I have used it before to debug some code or try out ideas with a friend. They recently got bought by Google, so it would be interesting to see what they do with it. This would suffer the same limitations as SubEthaEdit in that it’s just a text editor.

GoToMeeting (which is $40-50/month) its a little steep for the open source work I want to do. But people say it works really well.

VNC and Unix Screen - aimee had used this successfully before but since we weren’t on the same network, just our laptops at home, we weren’t sure it how we could make it work easily.

Then we came to TeamViewer which worked brilliantly! We shared desktop and I could type in aimee’s console window, see the tests running and type in textmate. Even with aimee on her Dvorak keyboard and I on Qwerty! I could type fine but couldn’t copy/paste with keyboard shortcuts so I used the mouse to copy/paste and it worked fine.

All in all, it was an awesome experience and I picked up on a few tidbits of knowledge from aimee on git, and rake! I had some bits of code from another project i was able to quickly copy/paste and get us rolling. We had a few discussions about coding style as we went.

Since aimee was more familiar with the codebase, she mainly wrote the behavioral specs and I wrote the code to satisfy them. We plan to switch around next time, when we pair on a different project that I’ve been developing for a while.

Software does more than crunch your numbers or take your picture: it can make you angry or bring you joy. And those are the things that we, as developers, have to tune in to if we want to make our products stand out.

Skitch is one of a handful of products I’ve used recently that remind me what makes a product successful. Utility is important, of course, but the love and emotional connection it engenders in its users is where it’s going to live or die.

Let’s start backwards, with the logo, since it’s the first thing you see. Their logo says nothing about their product’s functionality. There’s no initial, no recognizable signifier (thanks for sparing us the paintbrush), or even an abstract swoop. It’s, um, a heart.

And not just any heart, but a hot-pink, shimmering, pumping, overflowing, disco heart.

They’re not saying, “You might like us”. Or even, “As you can see by the ‘S‘, we’re Skitch”. They’re saying, “This is LOVE, baby!”. You and me!!! (How they’re managing to do that without coming across like Mr. Roper, though, is a mystery that is beyond the scope of this post.)

Now, this Love they offer, it’s not too intense. It’s not Valentines Day Red. It’s not a pushy “when are you going to commit” heart, a dreaded “we have to talk” heart, or even an “I’m complicated, but deep” kind of heart. Just hey, hearts, baby, I’m an extrovert, let’s groove on the dance floor and take some snaps!!!

I focus on this because right there in their identity they align themselves not with Software, but with Love and Play — a great gap to bridge. If the product sucked, it would be one thing. But it doesn’t. It makes bold choices and executes them well. They’re going for the whole tamale, not hiding behind industry-speak, and not afraid of a little heart and soul.

So, they have a lot to live up to. Moving beyond the logo, what does Skitch do that works and how can we learn from that?

It’s makes it easy to get started.
I haven’t taken the time to figure out all the features — in fact, I was too ADD to even watch the whole 3 minute video. But I didn’t need to. The critical 2 or 3 features are easy enough to get right away. Once someone commits, they’ll go deeper, but don’t make them wait, fiddle, or read a manual first. Make your learning curve the equivalent of 140 characters or less.

It does the things you’d want it to do.
This may sound simple, but it’s worth repeating. I wanted to take screenshots, write on them in fun fonts with arrows, then upload them to the web. Bingo. No matter how fun an imagined feature is, the trick is matching it to the intuitive use of your product. If people wouldn’t naturally want to do that thing, drop it. It doesn’t matter how slick it is.

It cuts out the middle steps.
In Skitch, you don’t have to select layers, like in Photoshop, to move items that are separate, such as text and arrows. You don’t have to explicitly save the picture on your desktop and then FTP it to the web — the app does it for you in one click. The designers have figured out your starting and ending points, then cut out all the excess steps in between. Spend time here, trimming the middle.

It makes it fun.
It understands that an application is not just about utility: you’re not just tediously trying to upload a picture to a website or share it with a friend — you’re having a moment in your life. Make that moment simple, and when you achieve that, make it fun.

It makes common actions unexpectedly pleasurable to use.
There are tons of patterns we use all the time when interacting with web and desktop applications. For instance, copy and paste. Copy and paste is great and I love doing it, but the folks at Skitch saved me a couple keystrokes by giving me a fun copy button on the image detail page. It wasn’t necessary per se, but it genuinely improved my user experience. So, don’t try to think about new things you could add: find out what the most integral interactions with your product are. Improve those.

Squeals of Delight
That’s what I did when I first used that copy button. That’s what I did when I clicked “webpost”, heard a whoosh, and saw that my screenshot was now on my very own Skitch web page. Go for the squeals: it means, this feels JUST RIGHT. If someone is squealing with delight (for Love or Software!) they are going to come back.

It’s not all paradise and apples of course.

There are confusing and frustrating interactions, just like in any product. These stand out more, ironically, because they raised the bar so high. So Skitchers, as you move forward, solve these problems for me :)

1. How do I get back to my home skitch page from a specific image page? You don’t really mean for me to click on the back button or delete the rest of the URL in the address bar after furrowing my brow looking for the obvious home link, do you?

2. Uploading. From my Skitch app window, I can’t click “webpost” right away because it first shows me “share”. Only after clicking on the “share” is “webpost” exposed. Since clicking “share” triggers a browser window populated with the Share link that steals focus, I have to tab back to Skitch to webpost. Annoying.

Overall, It was great to look at Skitch because it’s so well done. I think it’s worth taking a product apart to see why it works and how we can use those lessons in our own applications.

And finally, Full Disclosure: I have nothing to do with Skitch.

I just heart them.