Wanderlust and wonderlust

You can read Alex Garland's The Beach and you can be amazed by the colourful surroundings or you can be troubled by the selfishness by the people described in the book.

We travellers around the world have a big responsibility. To the environment, to each others and perhaps most importantly; to the local people.

When I went to college the word of the day was Information. We were supposed to be information seeking individualists. Information seeking? When starting reading Informatics this winter I understood that this is not fashionable any more. We don't seek information but thrills.

This affects me being a part of the leisure industry. We don't only have the wanderlust in people. We also have a wonderlust to tackle.

But it affects all developing software. People are not content in a system which barely surrenders the information they need. You get frustrated and disappointed if the system is not intuitive and amazing. Developers thinking "well, that (lousy) usability issue is something people have to learn how it works" need to build a sense of craftsmanship or get another job.

On the picture my son is looking longingly at the airplane. Experiences are so much about longing. In the case of leisure travelling this is perhaps obvious. When we start thinking about travelling we start longing for it. The longing period is also part of the experience. But this also applies to the implementation of computer software. Agile software developers leaves room for this phase by their inclusion of users in the development process and this should be exploited better. If you see the introduction of a system as a travelling experience you can give your customers and users so much value.

Most travellers don't only care about the trip from the time the plane lands. They also care about how the alternatives are presented, how the order is put, how the logistics at the airport works, which services and products are available. And I believe the same applies to the users of computer software.