Facebook Cookbook - Jay Goldman [26]
As you launch your application, be proactive and reach out to your early users. Ask them the questions you prepared, follow up on their answers, and answer any questions they may have. If a member engages with you in any way, be sure to thank them.
Ask your users to rate, review, and invite their friends to try out your application. If people seem unsatisfied, work on addressing their concerns before you ask them to tell their friends.
Pay particular attention to language. Most people are not developers, and they may not understand how you explain something. If that happens, they may feel like you are talking down to them or being dodgy. If you have to talk about technology, use clear language that is accessible to anyone.
Tone is also important. Be warm, positive, and excited. If you are pushy, negative, or lackluster, people will be turned off.
If something breaks, resist the temptation to get defensive or not respond until it’s fixed. Apologize, accept responsibility, and clearly state how you are working to fix the problem. Give an ETA if you have one. When the problem is fixed, follow up to thank people for their patience and support. No reasonable person expects your application to be perfect, but they will be impressed if you act professionally when a crack shows.
Finding Inspiration
—Alistair Morton (see his bio in Contributors)
Problem
Sometimes it’s hard to find a source of inspiration. I don’t even know where to start looking!
Solution
Creativity isn’t a system that can be learned easily. I’ve been told it’s much like writing: the more you do it, the easier (and clearer) it gets. A great boss once told me that to be a good writer, you need to “flex” your writing muscles often. Creativity is much the same.
Discussion
Where you find elements of creativity will be quite different for different people. Let’s begin with your immediate surroundings, as they will hold the keys for you to begin to visualize and associate differently. An average person, during an average day, is bombarded with television ads, art, architecture, print ads, billboards, and the like. Design and creativity simply surround us, but most of us have built up a resistance to the constant onslaught and become partially (if not fully) immune. While marketing companies fight to keep your attention, our built-in defense systems can really begin to neutralize the effect of these messages. To find a creative edge, we simply need to figure out how to turn it back on.
For some, this is something as simple as a sketchbook or a camera. Others can take in a great deal of their surroundings and process the things that speak to their creativity with ease. For the rest of us, keeping a keen eye on seeing past the messages to what might speak to people’s interest is tougher, but it’s possible when you store a mental note to remind yourself to try to see things slightly differently than you have before.
Similar to writing, this is an exercise you’ll need to do regularly before you can really identify the patterns and inspirational elements you react to most strongly. Design tends to work in trends, and once you spend a little time making the conscious connection to it, the patterns and elements will become obvious. Just remember to keep switching off your mental filter, and you’ll be surrounded by the beginnings of a creative glow in no time. Congratulations! You’re part of the way there. Finding those patterns and elements is just the beginning of discovering your creative brain.
For me, in my work as a designer, the most important part of creating is always to work in an element of a style that I have honed as my own over the course of many years. I spend a great deal of time picking the brains of other creatives and programmers for elements of things that interest them. A creative genius might not always be available to the average person, but there are plenty of them blogging