Recognizing that programmers cannot be expected to care deeply about users if they–the programmers–are not happy and fulfilled, Emotional Programmingâ„¢ brings a new level of sensitivity to software development. The Emo Programmerâ„¢ is one who strives to craft the most user-friendly, accessible, and inspiring applications. It is no longer enough for our programs to work well–they must add meaning to our end-users lives. Emotional Programmingâ„¢ shines a light on the path to a more emotionally uplifting approach to software development.
Yes, it is not enough for programs to just work well. However, the “add meaning to our end-users lives” is a bit much. End-users already have a goal. They need our software to get from not fulfilling that goal to moving it to the completed list. The more complicated and less well something functions to the point it becomes a a major bottleneck, the more likely we should toss it in favor of something else.
Caterina referenced the above post in her own blog post 9 reasons why people will *love* your web site. So I will use her a guinea pig. A company she work for, Flickr, does not, I don’t think, make people have a new goal of posting photos on the Net. Instead, people quite often already want to do this. However, many of the ways to do this are complicated. Flickr removes the process bottleneck of needing to have excellent computer skills to post photos (and probably many other bottlenecks).
