I agree. In addition, some interesting notes about HCI. First- if you haven't studied HCI or know what the acronym stands for, you may make it as a programmer

I agree. In addition, some interesting notes about HCI. First- if you haven't studied HCI or know what the acronym stands for, you may make it as a programmer for some company, but you're not going to reach your full potential creating new things. Anyway, I was reading an HCI paper in one of the publications a few years ago and came across these interesting statistics: 75% of software does _not_ in fact increase the productivity of the end-user. (over a paper-based alternative) Doing a single user-testing session results on average of fixes that take less than 2 days and that increase the usefulness of the product by 80% (that is it increases the end-user's productivity that much). Here's a poor-man's usability test. Get a bunch of people who have never seen your product and don't know much about it, but that are in your target demographic (shouldn't be difficult- a brother, roommate, family of the employees, someone off the street). Sit them down in front of your product and tell them you're not going to be allowed to answer any of their questions because you're measuring the usability of the system. Then stand over their shoulder and let them do their thing. Don't make a sound- no guiding, no "oh- that actually works by doing this"- just observe and take notes. A few sessions like this will mean a world of difference in your UI.