Broken window's are everywhere

In User Experience in a software development team I wrote that developers have their part to play in good product usability. I proposed that by getting all developers to understand about good business tier usability they would be more open to the User Experience mindset and would therefore consider the "user" in their UI design.

I developed this theory by reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, in the book Gladwell discusses the Broken Window or Zero Tolerance approach to crime prevention adopted by Rudy Giuliani in New York City in the early 90’s.

Under this approach Giuliani instructed the police to strictly enforce the law with regards petty crimes such as:

• Subway fare evasion
• public drinkers
• and graffiti artists etc.

Soon after rates of both petty and serious crime fell suddenly and significantly, and continued to fall over the following ten years[1]. The theory is that by creating an environment where petty crime can’t flourish serious crime would also stop. Crime would remain low due to more high profile policing and social constraints.

In User Experience in a software development team I highlighted one type of broken window that of user experience; reduce bad development decision in the lower tiers through an incomplete mindset and that should reduce the impact of bad decisions in user interface tier.

Now I would like to highlight some other broken windows that should be consistently guarded against.

These are:

• Don’t leave broken links in your site.
• Ensure the your web pages adhere to a published grammar i.e. they are XHTML compliant
• Developers should test their own work

Don’t leave broken links in your site

Broken links are a clear signal to your client that you don’t care about their project. After all, you couldn’t even be bothered to understand their content enough to ensure that they don’t look stupid in front of their customers.

The bottom line, whether we want to admit it or not, is that all web developers should be concerned about “brand”. Clients have the expectation that you’ll be responsible for their online brand and don’t take kindly to you making them look unprofessional. Don’t moan about it, take the opportunity to create a proactive relationship with your client and fix those links, help to make your client look more professional.

Ensure the your web pages adhere to a published grammar i.e. XHTML compliance

I’m not a standards nut, but ensuring that your page is compliant with a published grammar helps with the following.

1. Most modern browsers know how to interpret properly structure code and will pretty much display what you want how you want it.
2. Accessibility is important. Compliance to a grammar is one big tick for adhering to the accessibly guidelines.
3. Good grammar helps with SEO.

Start getting it right now, validate every page and don’t move on until it adheres to the doctype declared in your page header.

Developers should test their own work!

I can here cries of heretic from my development fraternity – but before you storm my house with pitch forks and flaming torches let me explain.

It’s a truism that most developer aren’t that good at testing their own work properly, they know what work and will test to make it work but honestly having debug messages flash up on a live system is just bloody lazy.

You are responsible for ensuring that your code is at production quality no one else. Stop the belly aching, take some responsibility.

Any more for any more?

The development activity like most creative tasks has the potential to create many different broken windows. What’s important for one project isn’t important for another. The key is to start to take responsibility for your actions. Know how what you do affects your client, their customers and their perception of you. Identify you own broken window and be proactive learning how to fix them.

[1] This is debated, in Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner argue that the fall in crime was due to the legalisation of abortion in 1973. The crux of their argument is that there were fewer 16 – 25 year old males from impoverished families, those most likely to commit crime, around and therefore less people committing crime.