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In last Sunday's show they were ramping up to launch a beta of their product and had a closed alpha session where the team could give out access codes to close

In last Sunday's show they were ramping up to launch a beta of their product and had a closed alpha session where the team could give out access codes to close friends. The three team members, all engineers, got universally positive feedback for how great their user interface was. Well except from Monica, who couldn't quite articulate why it was just off to the casual user [1]. [1]:http://www.piedpiper.com/app/themes/pied-piper/dist/images/interface_large.jpg http://www.piedpiper.com/app/themes/pied-piper/dist/images/i... Essentially everyone in the engineering team's social circle either were engineers themselves who wouldn't recognize good design if it hit them in the mouth, or intentionally did not give criticism of the product in order to suck up to the promising new startup.

minimaxir 10y ago
This is likely the plot progression for the next episode. (which is why the UI was hidden to the viewer)
- golergka 10y ago
  They shown the screen a couple of times, may be not long enough to expose bad UI, but still.
  - minimaxir 10y ago
    No, the editor UI which is teased at the Pied Piper website.
walrus01 10y ago
And now the Weissman score is a real thing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weissman_score https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weissman_score
- dietrichepp 10y ago
  No, it's universally derided as a bogus metric which doesn't even make logical sense.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    Well that was the actual point, but then they went and tied it to the dataset from the Hutter Prize, and now reality and satire have intermixed so thoroughly you'll never disentangle them.
actsasbuffoon 10y ago
Semi off-topic, but I think there was an Easter egg in that part of the episode. A few seasons ago Monica had to give some bad news to Richard, and she changed into white clothing before talking to him. I don't remember exactly how it came up, but she said she changed because studies had shown that bad news was less upsetting when the messenger was wearing white. When Monica was in her office looking at the beta, she was wearing a regular suit. When she shows up at Erlich's house (presumably soon after the last scene), she's changed into a white/cream colored sweater. I thought that was a nice callback to the earlier season.
- mercer 10y ago
  Close, but it was about dressing as plainly as possible: "as a study showed that the less sexual attraction a guy feels, the less it will hurt when he’s given bad news."
sangnoir 10y ago
I must say that Pied Piper's interface is a dead-ringer for Handbrake[1] if you moved all controls from different tabs onto one. Maybe similarity is not to Handbrake only, but any 'expert' level video conversion tool is bound to be equally inscrutable. 1. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kq_VI7SJLxo/UASmKSHJDcI/AAAAAAAAIps/KMd5T_UmDeY/s1600/HandBrake+v0.9.7.png http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kq_VI7SJLxo/UASmKSHJDcI/AAAAAAAAIp...
a_small_island 10y ago
I love how they have the chromecast addon for the browser in that screenshot.

minimaxir 10y ago

This is likely the plot progression for the next episode. (which is why the UI was hidden to the viewer)

golergka 10y ago
They shown the screen a couple of times, may be not long enough to expose bad UI, but still.
- minimaxir 10y ago
  No, the editor UI which is teased at the Pied Piper website.

walrus01 10y ago

And now the Weissman score is a real thing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weissman_score https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weissman_score

dietrichepp 10y ago
No, it's universally derided as a bogus metric which doesn't even make logical sense.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  Well that was the actual point, but then they went and tied it to the dataset from the Hutter Prize, and now reality and satire have intermixed so thoroughly you'll never disentangle them.

actsasbuffoon 10y ago

Semi off-topic, but I think there was an Easter egg in that part of the episode. A few seasons ago Monica had to give some bad news to Richard, and she changed into white clothing before talking to him. I don't remember exactly how it came up, but she said she changed because studies had shown that bad news was less upsetting when the messenger was wearing white. When Monica was in her office looking at the beta, she was wearing a regular suit. When she shows up at Erlich's house (presumably soon after the last scene), she's changed into a white/cream colored sweater. I thought that was a nice callback to the earlier season.

mercer 10y ago
Close, but it was about dressing as plainly as possible: "as a study showed that the less sexual attraction a guy feels, the less it will hurt when he’s given bad news."

sangnoir 10y ago

I must say that Pied Piper's interface is a dead-ringer for Handbrake[1] if you moved all controls from different tabs onto one. Maybe similarity is not to Handbrake only, but any 'expert' level video conversion tool is bound to be equally inscrutable. 1. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kq_VI7SJLxo/UASmKSHJDcI/AAAAAAAAIps/KMd5T_UmDeY/s1600/HandBrake+v0.9.7.png http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kq_VI7SJLxo/UASmKSHJDcI/AAAAAAAAIp...

a_small_island 10y ago

I love how they have the chromecast addon for the browser in that screenshot.