Lessons Learned 2: Stay away from “green buttons”
“Green buttons?” you say? Eh? I was working on my own product, Distant Suns for Windows, and thought it would be cool to have some green, retro-type of buttons instead of the usual ugly Windows controls. So I spent about a day crafting some little green buttons only to realize that in the time spent making one window slightly cooler, I could have spent adding a real new feature or squash some real bugs. In other words: I wasted time doing cool things ahead of necessary things, which told that to my girlfriend. On Valentine’s Day a few days later, she handed me a small box wrapped in red paper and rattled a rattle when I shook it. Inside were green buttons. About a dozen of all sorts, big ones, small ones, round and square ones. On my monitors you will find a green button taped to the rim, reminding me that while cool is good, working is better. Put the latter ahead of the former. (Unless I have something that so cool it’s awesome. Awesome can trump working much of the time…and that’s just cool.)
