On my trip out west, I got to go to a restaurant that I wanted to go to for a while. The reason I went was because I read that they had some of the best Indian food around. I bought the cookbook written by the owner of the restaurant and made some of the recipes. It all seemed very appealing and given the opportunity to experience the cooking first hand. My expectation was to have some of the best Indian food around. When I got there, I was met by the owner at the door, explained how it works around the restaurant, so there was no guessing from my part. He told me there was a 2 hour waiting list and they had a nice lounge for drinks and they offered free h'dourves. The guy taking our names remembered my name and came and found me. He didn’t just yell out my name, but gave the personal touch. They also told us that we didn’t have to wait the whole time in the restaurant, so we went for a walk around the area. For the most part, even with the wait, it was an enjoyable experience because of the service level given and the atmosphere.
When we eventually got to our table, and no one person was responsible for order, it seemed that everyone did everything. The owner went out of his way to come talk to us too, even when it was so busy, he could easily spend his whole night at the door. We got there around 7, ate at 8, left around 9:30 and it still had a 2 hour wait at the door. Good prices and overall impression left me wanting for more... to the point where when I didn't finish my meal (it was huge), the owner came over at said "eat, you look famished" and proceeded to put more food my plate.
All of this was above and beyond the experience I expected. The principles are simple and applicable anywhere. Give you customer the easiest possible experience and give them the best service you can.
In software, we should do the same exact thing. From a testing perspective, so as above - test of the restaurant condition - will it meet your expectations of a good product? Software should be easy to use and complicated software sometimes screams to me that we put too much on the user. Sometime users are power users, but if you're planning on making something useful, do it right.
In that, simplicity is the key. Think of Google, it beats all the other search engines out there because of its simplicity. In the background, the system is very sophisticated, but the key in how it works is in the user experience and the simplicity of finding information. The results from most searches meet my expectations (which means my result is usually somewhere on the first page).
