*crickets*

No, really, go ahead.

*crickets*

Doh.

Prelude to a heart attack.

Poutine is beautiful in its simplicity. Dump some crispy fries on a plate, top them with cheese curds, and pour gravy or other sauce over top. What it lacks in beauty, it makes up for in flavour. And grease. And salt. And arterial blockages.

These cheese curds are from Quebec, apparently.

To construct this cheesy concoction, I enlisted one of Canada’s leading experts on poutine, Chef Stacie Bee. I checked her credentials, and she has, in fact, not only been to Montréal, but has also actually eaten poutine. Furthermore, Stacie is an expert not only in poutine, but also in bacon, which became a small but vital component in our construction.

Chef Stacie transforms bacon into bacon bits. Note the bacon wristwatch, which can only be worn by a truly accomplished culinary expert in bacon.

As culinary experts agree, any food is made better by putting it on a stick: pizza on a stick; fries and bacon on a stick; spaghetti and meatballs on a stick; scorpion, seahorse, and silkworm larvae on sticks; and more! As chef and author, Anthony Bourdain, is fond of saying, everything tastes better on a stick.

And this is how Chef Stacie and I decided to prepare… poutine-on-a-stick.

Ingredients:

• Crispy french fries
• Cheese curds
• Gravy or poutine sauce (fresh is best, but we used powder)
• Delicious, crispy bacon

Poutine-on-a-stick under construction

Preparation:

1. Put fries and curds on the stick.
2. Put sauce on the stick.
3. Sprinkle bacon bits on the stick.

The finished product:

Behold the majesty that is POUTINE-ON-A-STICK!

Today, I did it. I brought pig and chocolate together in a sweet and salty chocomeatgasm. On a stick.

Ingredients:

Only 3 ingredients for the greatest food on earth

• 15 oz semi-sweet dark chocolate
• 4 oz white chocolate
• 15 strips of thick-cut bacon
• bamboo skewers

Preparation:

OK, admittedly at this stage it looks a little gross

1. Soak the bamboo skewers for a while, then skewer the bacon.
2. Put them on a rack in a roasting pan for 30 minutes at 350F until crispy.
3. Remove from oven and let them cool.
4. Melt the dark chocolate and smear it liberally on the bacon until no meat is showing through.
5. Put the skewers in the fridge until the chocolate sets.
6. Melt the white chocolate and drizzle lightly over the dark chocolate.
7. Put the skewers back in the fridge until it sets.

The result:

Mmm. Chocobacon.

• It is very popular and very packed. More bums than seats for some talks.
• Enthusiasm abounds for blogging: technologies, social relevance, strategies, and more.
• Attendees appear to be predominantly Macophiles: MacBooks, iPads, and iPhones abound. It was rare to see Windows. I was so ashamed of my Samsung netbook. So déclassé.
• Many people like to divide their time between Twitter and the speaker, occasionally including the one giving the talk.
• Many attendees do not look good in a lime green t-shirt.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the party at The Academic, despite having a ticket, but I’ll definitely be back for the 9:30am start. That is, I’ll be there if I can find a shirt. Stupid laundry day.

Northern Voice 2011

Months ago, I signed up for a conference that I knew nothing about for reasons that weren’t actually clear to me at the time. It was, admittedly, kind of an impulse buy. I’d heard of Northern Voice, I knew it was a conference for blogging and social media, but knew nothing about it beyond that. And though I’ve had this blog now since 2002 (see my archives), I’ve never thought to head out in the real world to connect with fellow bloggers and discuss the techniques, experience, and meaning of blogging. So the decision to attend Northern Voice 2011, my third conference of any kind, is a bit of a departure for me. My question now is this: Why am I going?

As a conference newbie, I have no idea what to expect when I get there, so I imagine I’ll figure out what it’s all about after I hang out for a bit. I’ll even try to Twitter my experience and “live blog” a little because that seems hip, and anyone who knows me will be familiar with exactly how hip I am. Maybe after a few hours of discussing blogging, discussing blogging meta-discussion, and meta-blogging meta-discussion, I’ll know why I’m there.

If you’re looking for me there, I’ll be the bald guy in the corner with a confused look and most likely the ONLY attendee not blogging/tweeting on an iPhone.

The Ingredients

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 crapload chocolate chips
• 1 crapload chopped crispy delicious bacon
• 2 cups flour

Assembly

1. Combine softened butter with the white and brown sugar. Mash ‘em together until it’s an even consistency.
2. Add the eggs and vanilla and bash them around until you have a nice brownish mush.
3. Dissolve a half teaspoon of baking soda in a teaspoon of hot water (fizzzz!) and add it to the brownish mush with the salt.
4. Add the chocolate chips and bacon bits.
5. Add the flour a half cup at a time and really bash it around. Get in there with your fists if you have to, until that cookie dough is battered into submission.
6. Put on a non-stick cookie sheet in small balls, spaced well apart. Stick a chunk of crispy bacon on top of each ball for appearances. Bake for about 10 to 12 minutes. Not too long or they get dry and tasteless.
7. Let them cool, then melt the chocolate in a double-boiler or the microwave. Drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookies and let them set in the fridge.
8. Eat.

The Finished Product

Obviously, the concept of the user as a god doesn’t exist in reality, and the idea that our programs should treat us as gods has essentially vanished. No application is truly subservient to your needs — in fact, that sentiment might have died with Clippy, the helpful paperclip. If anything, software developers create applications with the idea that the user is subservient to it. Create the basic functionality with no regard to ease-of-use, and if the user has difficulty, that’s their problem: if it works somehow, more or less, then the developer’s job is done.

While this is usually how software is made, this isn’t how good software is made. This is how useful software products fail, in fact. You can have the most functionally complete application ever created, but if you ask your user to fill in too many gaps, to do too much work to make your tools useful, then you might as well not have any product at all. If you want to create usable software, as opposed to useful software, then you have to keep your user in your mind with every line of code.

But who are your users? You know by talking to your customers that some are more technically competent than others. As much as you’d like to give the middle finger to anyone you don’t consider your intellectual equal, they are the reason you have a job. Your job is to write tools for actual users. So your job is to first understand who these users are.

No, they aren’t one homogenous mass of people with wallets. Each approaches your product with their own skill level and background. However, if you look carefully, you can break down the user base into three distinct groups, and focus your efforts accordingly.

First, and most obviously, there are the Beginners. Beginners have no extensive experience with computers or software in general, and they need a crapload of hand-holding. A subset of these are the ones who attack the software with no experience and no desire to read the manual — the needy users. Another subset will rely entirely on phoning tech support. Despite the fact that you speak to the needy users more than anyone else, these are a tiny minority. If you’ve designed your software correctly, the majority of Beginners will be able to intuitively understand how to use the tools you provided.

Second, we have the Skilled users. These are the ones who have spent enough days using your product that they’ve moved on from simple “how to” questions to advanced questions of how to affect the best use of your product. If you have a basic user manual, chances are, they are way beyond it already. Now they need advice on specific use-case scenarios and implementations. If you don’t cover these issues in your manual, these questions will inevitably fall to tech support and end up costing you money.

Finally, we have the Advanced users. These are the users you love, because they don’t actually need help. In fact, they’ve used your software so much, they can inform you as to what changes you need to make for future releases. It’s important to listen to these users, but at the same time, avoid being guided too much by their needs, because their needs by definition don’t match the needs of the vast majority of your user base.

So those are your users: Beginners, Skilled, and Advanced. If you design your product with the user in mind, which user are you designing for when the needs of each group is vastly different? Let’s focus on the learning timeline, because it’s clear that Beginners don’t stay Beginners forever; eventually, they’ll become Skilled. In fact, it’s likely that they’ll only remain fumbling, needy Beginners for a week or so before they master the basic skills and move on to more advanced issues. Advanced users are a tiny subset that could really master any interface in spite of even vast usability problems, while at the same time informing you of the problems as they work.

The group that you need to focus on is the Skilled group. Every day, these individuals sit down and use your product to solve problems. Your task is to make their life easier. And if you’ve designed your user interface right, you’ve eliminated the pain of repetitive tasks, and streamlined daily activities based on what they need. In terms of documentation, your manual provides tips on how to improve their work flow, rather than focusing on clicks and menus.

The ideal software is easy to approach for the Beginners, provides obvious benefits to the Skilled, and is open-ended enough to allow Advanced users to expand on what you started. If any of these users needs to read the manual to perform any basic function, then you’ll know that you screwed up the interface. A user’s experience both begins and ends with the interface. User experience is the alpha and omega of interface design, and for that reason, if you haven’t once said, “Oh, my User!” then you’re doing something wrong.

For those of you wanting to read my books Raised by Penguins and Cubicle Dreams without having to read them off pressed sheets of dried tree mush, I’m happy to now make them available as a PDF download:

• Raised by Penguins (2004) PDF
• Cubicle Dreams (2007) PDF

To save to disk, right-click those links and choose Save Link As or similar.

If you have an iPad,… well first of all, I hate you,… but more importantly, you can use Calibre on your PC/Mac and Stanza on your iPad to copy it over for your reading pleasure. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, that method works as well, but the print is tiny.

* Not really.

** By “all kinds”, I mean two books made up of old blog entries, an unpublished novel, a published book on Mindstorms robotics, and countless instructional manuals.

The experiment: BACON BROWNIES.

Let me offer a warning here. The potential for this recipe to go very wrong is great, and it could very well cause serious injury, heart attack, liver damage, diabetes, swine flu, and tongue depression. We are trained professional bacon experts. Do not attempt this recipe at home.

Our experiment began in a highly secure, top-secret location in my kitchen. Joining me in the laboratory was Dr. Catherine Omega, Bacon Foodstuffs Assembly Engineer (Ph.D. in baconology and certificate in bacononomy). We began by assembling our materials.

Ingredients:

• 5oz semisweet chocolate
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup flour
• 1 crapload of bacon

The component elements of the bacon brownie seem innocuous enough... until they are combined.

PHASE 1: Batter Fabrication

Naturally, the first step is to make bacon, for which one must slaughter the pig, butcher it, cure the bacon, then fry it until crispy. Unfortunately, determining the correct order of these operations took us several attempts. As it turns out the first step should never be curing the pig because one develops an emotional, doctor-patient bond with the animal that makes it impossible to see it as a foodstuff. Fortunately this stumbling block was removed at a suggestion from Cat to maybe make the pig dead first, and then the other steps would follow logically. “Well aren’t you clever,” I said and was not sarcastic at all.

The frying process produced a small pile of crispy pig chunks.

From the pan to the plate in several rounds, eventually we had a small pile of crispy meat, which I proceeded to chop as Cat observed to make sure that I cut off fewer than the maximum alottment of digits. Safety first!

Chop, chop, chop, chop, OW, chop, chop...

Next we each surfed the web on our iPhone/iPod with one hand, while we added sugar to the salted, beaten eggs with the other. I’m not sure who took the photo then.

Mixing sugar into the beaten, salted egg. Be sure to give those eggs a good thrashing.

Cat added melted chocolate and I added the thickening agent, flour.

Dr. Omega carefully adds melted chocolate to the mixture, watching carefully for signs of spontaneous ignition.

My hand indicates the location of the batter:

The completed batter strongly resembles eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt, chocolate, and flour. Strange.

And thus, we have basic fudge brownie batter. The next step…

PHASE 2: The Pigification

Just what is PIGIFICATION, you ask? Well, in scientific terms, it is the application of… well, how shall I put it in terms simple enough for the layman to understand? It’s this:

The brownie batter requires quite a bit of pigification in the form of bacon chunks.

Do that a few times over and a brownie batter is truly pigified to saturation. Then, upon depositing the pigified batter into a metal pan, we applied an additional layer of bacon bits to the top along with some chocolate chips.

In this photo, my hand indicates the location of the bacon.

When you see this next photo, please understand that Dr. Omega is an experienced professional baconologist, and as such may at some times forego the safety equipment that one should normally wear when preparing bacon foodstuffs in the lab. Perhaps it’s bravado, but this photo shows Cat depositing the brownies into the oven without heat-resistant mitts, face shield, or asbestos suit. Reckless indeed, but her expertise kept her safe from harm. Do not attempt this at home, as I’ve said before.

Catherine Omega risks life and limb to deposit the brownie mixture into the oven without sufficient safety equipment.

Baking time: 35 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Not to be outdone by Cat’s brave dismissal of her safety equipment, I removed the finished brownies from the oven without the use of the asbestos fire suit. Not in this photo is the full-face heat shield.

Using protective mitts and face shield, I removed the brownies from the oven. Clearly lacking Catherine's bravery.

And after the brownies rested to firm up a little bit, we embarked on the final stage of this experiment. The taste test.

PHASE 3: Proof Pigitive

Cat, once again proved her bravery by taking the first bite of this swine confection:

Cat bravely samples a small bite of bacon brownie.

“How is it?” I asked, afraid to try it for myself.

“Umm. It tastes like bacon.”

Cat considers how to describe the interesting flavour in words.

Indeed, her observation was astute. It did taste like bacon. A lot.

Yup. It definitely tasted like bacon.

And so ends this bacon experiment. Remember: Do not attempt these bacon-related activities at home.