Satire: No team members were harmed in the making of this post
Listen up, team, our flagship software is a cash cow, netting us billions per year. It’s indispensable in numerous industries, millions use it every day for core operations of their business. We dominate the market sector, and there’s no sign of its momentum slowing.
So let’s change it dramatically to make everyone hate it.
We’ve gotten word that some of the UX features are beloved. People have established work flows based on where critical functions are in the menu. Move those to some obscure place, or better yet, deprecate them altogether. If you keep some, at least change the practical names like Contacts and morph them into more vague terms like Connections or Relations. Ooh, Touch Bases! Good one. We’ll use them all at some point, so jot those down.
It’s been months, time to shuffle around the Options, Preferences, and Settings. Doesn’t matter, just go with any configuration.
I saw some of your prototypes of windows that can’t be moved, resized, or closed. You might think about incorporating that with the buttons and menu items that are greyed out for no reason. Yep. Sure thing, happy to help any time.
When in doubt, just go with vague. It’s easier to take out a command than to perform upkeep, and it’s not your problem anyway. What some call “dumbing down” is for our purposes “optimizing” and “refreshing the platform”. It’s super important to maintain the appearance that things are operating at a high level. Most users will assume that they’re too out-of-touch to understand what’s happened to their workflow.
I’d like to see a list of useless defaults to override whatever a user has set up. You know, like deleting shortcuts they’ve made or suggesting modules they’ve disabled or never used. Get in their face with that. As always, apply MIMA – More Icons = More Anger. Dig deep, take more screen real estate.
Dev team… do something about the Print intermodal so they can’t use the system print dialog anymore. While you’re at it, “print” is now “publish”, and you guessed it, move that from the File menu to the Tools menu. Is there something more vague we can say instead of Tools?
I’m hearing that startup times are still within tolerable range. Can we get on that? You could put a few items in the startup folder so it bogs down the whole rig every time someone restarts. And they have to restart when… That’s right, when the whole system crashes. You’re crushing it today.
Okay, moon shot time. Gotta pick one crucial function and nuke it. Last quarter’s update we got rid of the thing where you could revert to the classic interface. Genius. Think of how gratifying that was to watch the forums blow up with all the unanswered complaints from customers who have no option but to continue using our stuff! I really kind of enjoy reading the meager attempts at solutions and workarounds. Keep up the indifference!
On that note, I do want to shout out to customer support… oh, I mean MVP Solutions Team for drafting that canned response that applies to so many inquiries. Sheer brilliance how you got in all the greatest hits, “have you restarted”, “have you updated”, “it’s a hardware issue”, “it’s another vendor’s problem”… poetry. You stand as a beacon to all who ignore the gnashing and wailing of indentured subscribers.
Subscriptions, I know you’ve raised concerns about making it impossible to renew online. I hear you, but the big picture is how much more we make when accounts go delinquent, and we rack up late fees and penalties. Yeah, no worries, we all gain enlightenment some time. Just remember that principle when you’re processing cancellations.
Marketing, you’ve got your work cut out for you. We need to hawk this next update like it’s the last printer or type of USB cable they’ll ever have to buy. Include that little twinkle in our eye that acknowledges we know it’s all bull. Warms my heart every time.
We need to wrap this up, so I’ll just read the last few things in a lightning round. Mobile: more popups. Every video is to autoplay. Online account access – make the links circular so you can’t actually accomplish anything. Have it reload at random intervals, log them out, and delete whatever they typed. Make a Smart TV app. No, it doesn’t need to work. Just keep them logging in and authenticating over and over.
Looking to next quarter, start thinking about why people use our stuff. What is essential, the whole reason they went with us in the first place? Put that in your
Fantastic job, everyone, really. People could accomplish so much more if it weren’t for you. Now, back to destroying our legacy.
