Tag Archives: simplicity

The Little Things – Photo Cropping

LinkedIn lets you upload a new photo of yourself, as many social networks do. But they take it to the next level. Instead of making the user crop her photo, LinkedIn provides a simple intuitive interface for the user to do the cropping via the browser. 

A couple of things make this a nice feature. First, it’s a part of a the general routine of uploading a photo. It’s not explained before the user uploads a photo. It’s just intuitive. The second, LinkedIn wastes no space outside of this feature trying to entice users to upload photos simply because the feature exists. In other words, they haven’t said “Upload a photo and crop it.” Instead they concentrate on delivering value one step at a time. 

All dating sites and social networks should have this feature. 

 

Step 1 - Upload your photo

Step 1 - Upload your photo

Step 2 - Crop your photo

Step 2 - Crop your photo

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Fail Fast & Other Product Development Lessons Learned in the Trenches

I spoke at a San Diego TiE event at the end of January. It was a panel of Software Entrepreneurs fielding questions about what the start-up life is like in software these days. Steve Bjorg from MindTouch was there. The two other panelists were Thomas Carter, Founder & CEO, Capital Window  and David Desch, Vice President of Engineering and IT, Digital Force Technologies (he helped Sony launch their HDTV division). For me, the chance to speak at the event was well worth it. I had not a little bit of fun too. In every way, I was the anomaly up there. No success to speak of (in the monetary sense), no “team” and no inhibitions.

Aside from being fun, the event also helped me frame some thoughts I’ve been having. I thought it would be a good idea to get them down on paper while they are fresh and share wit you. Let me know what you think, yeah? [...]

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