As a public policy specialist (and a tinkerer when it comes to tech), I read the article with pure joy.
This is the "wonder" that happens when you build for the client instead of for yourself. It takes being truly intentional: sometimes the client (especially that kind of client) does not know what he needs or want; sometimes you as a dev simply build something with good intentions but just out of habit.
Taking the time to ask true, relevant questions, and build backwards, is one of the ways you achieve this. It takes time, energy, intentionality (once again)... but it's worth it.
Everyone pays lip service to 'user experience' and 'putting the customer first', but, only with experiences such as acing customer service forms can one really claim to know what 'putting the customer first' means.
Sometimes it is just a form that you need, with the web page loading a new one after 'submit' has been clicked. Yes we can do fancy things to ajax-submit the data, but did the customer want that?
Getting to the form in its 'final form' takes work, particularly if asking the customer for more information, such as proof of purchase or important documents. Do you just start the conversation with a 'contact us' box to have customer service ask for the bits they need later, or do you ask the customer for all information up front, reducing the need for back and fore?
You need to actively test what your customers will do, with metrics such as time filling in the form and how big the ticket queue is.
There can also be internal problems that prevent getting the form right. For example, if there is some manager in charge of customer service that is an empire builder, with a vast team. If your form decimates the team because everyone is efficient and able to go home at the end of the day with an empty queue, then you have undermined the empire builder, so he will want you gone!
There are some huge benefits to getting customer service right. You can brazenly have phone numbers, email addresses and even physical addresses, all published on the website. If the forms work then the phone never rings, the inbox is empty. And nobody can accuse the company of hiding behind a wall of corporate website small print.
The word of mouth aspect is also not to be overlooked. You can harvest reviews from happy customers that should have been unhappy under the old system. If you fix their problem in an hour, or get a replacement product to them the next day, then they will write you a rave review, with that being great for the customer because they explain better than you can how dedicated your customer service team is.
I use the word customer lightly here, there is the term 'service user' that is used in the public/third sectors, but that doesn't sound good in front of the 'service user', probably because they have an actual name.
Getting to the form 'in the final form' means quite a few small changes that can be easily reverted and monitored. It could be just making an input box only show capital letters, or show a numeric rather than standard keyboard.
Ideally, a submitted form does something when completed to place the ball in either the customer service court or that of the customer. If the customer need to provide some information before anyone need look at the ticket, the form needs to send out that email, then park the ticket awaiting whatever the customer does next. There should be no need for someone on the team to do that step.
I know AI does everything awesomely under all circumstances, but the 3-6 month journey needed to deeply understand the customer, the product and the team is something that needs a human, simply because you are dealing with humans and their emotions.
What has proven to be a huge bonus is CSS grid styling. Inputs and labels can be written without the div and span cruft, with everything lining up nicely with a few align 'center' CSS things.
What a fun time to be doing forms that actually work!
> I don't really get why some people seem to think that it's somehow better to have their bullet point prompt as a huge text
Probably people who have never wanted to put the required thinking effort in a simple, structured response to a question, and now think that "a lot of words" magically solves that skill issue.
While Blaise Pascal, he of triangle and foundations of evil, may have indeed written something like that--though probably in 1600s French--it is almost certain that he did have the time. he just so not want to use it to edit his letter to be shorter.
The question before is now is now is whether the letter contains any quotable quotes that have survived 400 years other than his critique of style.
As a non-technical person (not a dev, not a SWE, just a curious and selftaught tinkerer), I only want my _local_ markdown files to render as a beautiful - or at least, clean - webpage, to ease reading and sharing. No Github involved, no contorsionism needed. Just local md files. It should not be that complicated, at least that's what I felt.
Those were the only requirements that made me settle with Material MkDocs, and that are driving me towards the fork MaterialX. The comparison the latter makes with Zensical [0] is _exactly_ how I feel it (again, as a non-technical person).
Creator of Zensical here! Would you mind sharing a bit more detail on why you feel the comparison is on point? One of our core goals with Zensical is to simplify things – not add complexity. We’re also working toward making it an almost 100% drop-in replacement for Material and the broader MkDocs ecosystem, so I’d be especially interested in understanding what feels more complicated from your perspective. I’d appreciate any specifics on where we can improve.
That said, I do think the linked comparison may be a bit misleading. As far as I can tell, MaterialX is still largely based on the Material for MkDocs codebase with mostly some UI changes, several of which the author has taken from Zensical.
The product seems more 'focused' than Nextcloud, for sure.
But their docker choices are quite opinionated: no longer than yesterday I've tried (once again!) to make it run, and the fact that I have Caddy + Authelia in front of seems to be rather detrimental. I dropped the ball, and will try again in a few weeks or months.
Same here, tried both and sticked with Miniflux that seems on the lighter side. I don't really need the web interface or an app, because I channel everything towards a Telegram bot, where I read the feeds: a glance at the title, "Instant View" or long read if needed.
At a system level, this totally makes sense.
But as an individual learner, what would be my motivation to do so, when I can "just" actually learn my subject and move on?
>But as an individual learner, what would be my motivation to do so
Because if there's one thing the older generations is much better than us at, it's complaining about the system and getting them to kowtow to them. We dismiss systematic change as if it doesn't start with the individual, and are surprised that the system ignores or abuses us.
We should be thinking short and long term. Learn what you need to learn today, but if you want better education for you and everyone else: you won't get it by relinquishing the powers you have to evoke change.
It's high fees, burdensome sanctions/AML checks (especially if the said country has been recently or is still on a GAFI list), plus the suboptimization of the core banking systems regarding international transfers, that make the whole things happen in weeks (or sometimes never happen if the end beneficiary doesn't start pinging, emailing or phoning its bank every now and then). The whole unreliability/unpredictability of the thing makes it undesirable for regular operations.
Oh, is there a way to switch to the beta channel? I love and use Swinsian, I know they're actively working on the next major version, but can't get interim ones.
As someone with a finance background and job, this deeply annoys and irritates me. Even made me quit a market finance path for something more realistic. As the saying goes, "you can't have infinite growth on a finite planet". I don't know why we need to explain something so obvious to people who (1) have the power to make and (2) are making decisions with large scale impact, every minute. Unless there's something (pure evil, maybe?) I haven't uncovered yet.
Sure. In theory. In real world being a customer often means adapting your expectations and finding workarounds to get what you need. If this solution could have worked, building your own data center would seem rather extreme and unpractical.
This is the "wonder" that happens when you build for the client instead of for yourself. It takes being truly intentional: sometimes the client (especially that kind of client) does not know what he needs or want; sometimes you as a dev simply build something with good intentions but just out of habit.
Taking the time to ask true, relevant questions, and build backwards, is one of the ways you achieve this. It takes time, energy, intentionality (once again)... but it's worth it.
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