As part of its effort to standardize the user interface and functionality of
all Windoze 2000 programs, Windoze producer Micromafia has proposed the
following guidelines. They will make your development strategy consistent
with the development strategy at Micromafia.
1. Start by having your R&D staff search the net and other sources
for popular applications until they find one that would look good in a box
with the art division's latest logo.
2. The R&D staff must now completely replicate that product, changing
the interface slightly and adding no less than 20,000 extra
"features," at least 100 of which must really be bugs that they
didn't feel like fixing.
3. Do NOT, under any circumstances, test the product. This is a waste of
time and money. Ship the first beta that arrives on your desk. In fact,
don't bother even getting it on your desk. Just ship every build that comes
along. Users like upgrades. Besides, you can charge people for bugfixes
cleverly disguised as "service packages". Users love service
packages.
4. Hopefully someone's written a user's manual. In fact, it's probably
readable by a normal human being. This is unacceptable; perform a find and
replace operation on random English words, replacing them with technical
terms and acronyms. Users like acronyms; they add mystery to a product.
Never tell what an acronym means; this is unprofessional. You may even wish
to make up your own acronyms; again, don't tell what they mean. For every
sensible sentence, you lose at least three calls to your $200-per-incident
tech support line. Users love calling tech support, especially when there
are fifty touch tone menus that all lead to the same two people.
5. Prepare for shipping. Have your team of 57 lawyers create a
prefabricated license agreement. If you do not have 57 lawyers, hire or fire
as necessary so that you do have 57 lawyers. Be sure that the license
agreement includes a "by opening the box, you agree to this"
statment. Then put it inside the box. Users will perceive this as a joke and
laugh. Users love involuntarily binding themselves to legal agreements.
6. Before shipping, invest in shrink wrap. Shrink wrap the manual. Shrink
wrap the CD. Shrink wrap each and every floppy disk separately. Shrink wrap
the "getting started" card. Shrink wrap the registration card.
Shrink wrap the card from your grandmother. Then dump the whole mess in a
box and shrink wrap it. Pack several boxes inside a larger brown box with
5,637 non-decomposable foam peanuts (each one shrink wrapped individually,
of course). Be sure the foam peanut count is exactly 5,637. Remove or add
shrink-wrapped foam peanuts as necessary. Throw in a roll of bubble wrap
because of its entertainment value.
7. Ship the product and move your entire R&D and art staff to the
$200-per-incident tech support lines.
