6 ms·

Half of these are just wrong. The other half are just irritating.

• d2viant 16y ago
  Would you be more specific?
  • axod 16y ago
    For example: "Never go with your first instincts." Google "Always go with your first instincts" = About 50,800 results. Google "Never go with your first instincts" = About 7 results. Both of those are clearly stupid advice to give. But if I had to choose one, I'd go with "Always go with your first instincts" based on my own anecdotal evidence. It's just 37signals being contrarian, pretty much their MO.
    • jasonfried 16y ago
      Out of context that one can be misleading. The context was that our first instinct in a specific situation was to solve a much bigger problem than we needed to. Had we followed that instinct we'd have gone down the wrong road. What was better was to challenge that initial instinct and ask "What's the real problem here? How can we solve the most important part of that real problem as quickly and simply as possible? Maybe that'll be all we need to do." It turned out that was exactly what we needed to do. First instincts often see big huge pictures. We've found that challenging that initial instinct helps us find the little piece of the big pie that is really in need of a solution.
      • axod 16y ago
        I think TBH that's my main problem with these. They're all out of context, and so fairly useless without the back story.
• clyfe 16y ago
  They built a solid business on these principles...
  • swombat 16y ago
    No, they built a solid business on the experience and deep understanding that eventually led to these one-liners. The one-liners are useless. The experience that led to them (which was, no doubt, shared at the "masterclass") is priceless.
    • avk 16y ago
      Exactly, thus my comment above about attendees paying $1,000 for a learning experience: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959654 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959654
  • apl 16y ago
    I suspect it's the opposite. They built a solid, not spectacular business on clever marketing and craftsmanship. Then they extracted witty aphorisms from it, and became heroes. It's a bunch of platitudes. Nothing straightforwardly false, but in such high doses? Smug and vacuous.
• noahkagan 16y ago
  It's less about them being right or wrong and more about the way they choose to run their business. It works for them, may not work for everyone. For me the most valuable thing was really writing out the story of the site & simple mocks before you start building. Trying to do more of that now.
• mikegreenberg 16y ago
  Please oh please tell us which is which!! (And be sure that your answer is just as obtuse as your reply above! THX!)
  • axod 16y ago
    I speak my mind shrug. I think it's better to say what you think than say nothing at all. Either you love 'nuggets' of "wisdom" like this, or you hate them. It might have also been the [tweet] spam buttons that got on my nerves (Makes you tweet out the 'nugget' with a bitly link back to the page).
    • mikegreenberg 16y ago
      Opinions are fantastic. The problem here is that your opinions are meaningless unless you support them. And whether you choose to back up your opinion or not in a meaningful way is the difference between reading/commenting on news _here_ versus reading/commenting on news _most_ other places.
      • Jabbles 16y ago
        The problem here is that your opinions are meaningless unless you support them. I think that was axod's main problem with the article.
        • run4yourlives 16y ago
          I think 37Signals has done enough to support their particular opinions though, whereas I'm not sure you can say the same for axod, but I will stand corrected.
          • axod 16y ago
            I'm not the one charging $1000 per seat for my wisdom ;)
            • 16y ago
• Timothee 16y ago
  How so? For example, how are these wrong or irritating? "Ask a person to draw the screen from memory and only the most important things will be remembered" "Users always come with feedback in the form of solutions, not problems. Try to understand root issues." "Try it and look at the data for decisions. Don't be attached to your decision" Is it irritating because you find these obvious? I could see that. But the same way I know I should exercise more, eat better and sleep more, while still not doing it, it's always good to hear/read good advice again and again.
  • axod 16y ago
    If you asked someone to draw the screen of say http://godaddy.com http://godaddy.com from memory, they'd likely mainly remember the lovely lady wearing a 'godaddy' t-shirt. Is that the most important thing? What we remember is different to what we want if we need it. "important" isn't specific enough. Who is it important to? In what context? Should we also ask a hacker to write down the keyboard short cuts from emacs they remember and get rid of the rest of them? I'm not going to get into an argument, but hopefully you can see why I made the comment.
    • avk 16y ago
      > If you asked someone to draw the screen of say http://godaddy.com http://godaddy.com from memory, they'd likely mainly remember the lovely lady wearing a 'godaddy' t-shirt. Is that the most important thing? That's exactly the point. Isn't that something the GoDaddy designer(s) should know and take into account? They want people buying domain names, not drooling. Again with GoDaddy, do you want a sexy brand image, a lead gen wet dream, people to quickly buy domain names in bulk, etc.? I completely agree that "important" isn't specific enough but it's up to you, as the designer, to figure out the balance.