Creating Passionate Users

The case for easter eggs (and other clever user treats)

My previous post on user treats drew some arguments both for--and passionately against easter eggs in software. But in each of the arguments against easter eggs, the reason is virtually the same: "Why the hell are you spending your time creating these "surprises" when you haven't even bothered to fix the glaring bugs?"

So let's get this out of the way right now...

Until you've nailed the fundamentals--the things users want, need, and expect--don't bother trying to "surprise and delight" users. That just pisses 'em off.

That's why I updated the graphic I made for my earlier how to break through post to show the place a product or service should be before easter eggs come into the picture.

But this blog is about creating passionate users, not merely satisfied users. If you're still dealing with the bottom levels of the hierarchy, you've got bigger issues to deal with first. The scary thing is, in those lower levels you're kicking and clawing and trying to buy your way to market share amidst what is, for most of us, brutal competition. And that's not a fun place to be, financially or emotionally and spiritually.

So now that we're talking only about those who've satisfied user requirements and expectations...

A good easter egg is a playful, hidden or disguised feature that, when discovered, can offer surprise, delight, entertainment, humor, novelty, or an "I Rule" experience.

I'm not just talking about software easter eggs--you'll find them in movies, music, posters, logos (have you noticed the little extra image within the FedEx logo?), books (our Head First books have quite a few), games, magazines, blogs...

Brains thrive on the "OH!" moments of discovery.

They love to stumble on things, and even better--they love to figure things out. A lot of easter eggs are like puzzles waiting for you to find their second meaning, especially when that meaning requires some "insider" knowledge or skill.

If user engagement is a Good Thing (and for what most of us are creating, selling, writing it is), easter eggs can be a powerful ally in making that happen. Done right, easter eggs can add value that (unless you're doing a mission-critical app where undocumented code is a security or safety risk) is worth it.

Characteristics of good easter eggs:

* They get users involved as a participant rather than a passive specatator (people have told us they've through our books a second time looking for some of the easter eggs once they've found a few and realize that they're in there).

* They get users to spend more time

* They're remembered (you can use easter eggs to enhance learning)

* They DO NO HARM!

* Their discovery is NOT a required part of the experience. If it is, then it's not an easter egg, but simply a part of the product.

* They give users the "I Rule" experience of being clever enough to "get it", especially if it's in plain sight, but requires "insider" info to recognize it. For a particular audience, for example, that might be "NCC-1701" as the license plate on a car. Just about every programming book (ours included) uses the number "42" in a statistically unlikely number of code examples. And there are more Monty Python references scattered in books and movies than any of us can possibly know.

Think about the number of movies that include lines made famous in other movies, or feature cameos from the director or an actor from the original movie, etc. but that only die-hard fans would discover. The person who "gets it" has the smug satisfaction of knowing that the line or joke would be lost on other mortals.

[In the new Hitchhiker's Guide movie, a key character from the original BBC TV show makes an appearance in the movie, as a different character. This recognition is not in any way required for you to enjoy the movie, but it's a wonderful delight and surprise to discover it, and those who do feel somewhat "special" for experiencing more in the movie than others will.]

* They're entertaining in some way (this is largely the point of making them)

* They do NOT need to be funny, although they often are. But they can be moving, inspirational (like discovering the developers were proud enough of their work to put in their personal signatures and sometimes photos), or thought-provoking.

Not everything that's entertaining and fun is funny... logic puzzles are fun, but not funny. Chess is fun, but not funny. Easter eggs can work the same way.

As a disclaimer, I'll state the obvious--we shouldn't be adding undocumented code to anything running a mission-critical application like, say, air traffic control or a nuclear power plant. Actually, we shouldn't be adding undocumented code to ANYTHING, but there's no reason a programmer can't document easter egg code, except for the whole getting fired thing... so there are obviously places you don't want to put these things. But I'm not talking about those!

So assume that we're all exercising common sense, and we're now trying to go beyond the basics in our products and services. We're trying to deliver more engaging, delightful, fine-grained, frequent treats to reward our users and the employees who get to make doing this a part of their job description.

To summarize: if you don't have the basics down, don't even think about adding special features like easter eggs. But if you're stopping at user satisfaction and meeting expectations, you're in for a bloody marketshare battle, because there's nothing stopping your competitors from doing the same thing. If you want to compete for hearts and minds, you have to care about the higher notches of user experience, and easter eggs are one of the many tools you should have in your user-delight toolbox. Unfortunately, easter eggs have gotten a bad rap in many software shops, but some developers aren't so happy about that (like this Microsoft Longhorn evangelist).

And if you're looking for easter eggs in your own software, the best place to start is The Easter Egg Archive, which advertises "7884 easter eggs collected so far, 9 new in the last two weeks!"

Finally, you might want to check out this wonderful book on "witty thinking in graphic design", A Smile in the Mind. Although it's specific to design, it's a visually-rich (and very entertaining) book with a message that applies to virtually anything from teaching a class to writing a book to developing software to decorating your house. Leave it on your coffee table and watch what happens...