A couple weeks back, I made mention of a small-but-potentially fatal usability bug in Movable Type. (Okay, it's not 'I killed John Denver' fatal, but it is "I lost every instance of the word diarrhea in my blog archives" fatal.) I reported the bug in a rather weak way: posted a screenshot on Flickr, blogged it here, and then forgot about it. (Oh, I tagged it up all proper-like. My own little experiment in letting the folksonomy do the work of the folks.)
I kinda figured that Jamison would notice it eventually (he works at Six Apart, and is a friend from my AOL days.) Then that shit would be on like Hostess Ding-Dongs (or "King Dons" according to your geographical inclination.) 'Cause Jamison is a passionate guy, and nothing gets him as riled up as user-centered design. (Okay, maybe Black-rock City. He seems to really feel that place.)
But this is a guy who, when Mac OS 10.2 came out, spent almost 20 minutes explaining to me his distaste for the new, ever-so-slightly-glassier Quartz button appearance (it's a respect-for-guidelines thing. Don't ask.) So, I'm thinking, once Jamison gets wind of this, woe to the bug that's standing in front of that can of shaken Raid.
But who do you suppose finally spied the screen on Flickr and weighed in with his (terse, but wonderfully honest) two-pence? Anil Dash. And it only took 2 weeks and 5 days! And all I had to do was meekly raise my hand. No 'petitions to Apple', no haranguing emails. Hell, not even a bulletin-board posting.
So kudos to Anil. (Who, btw, posted about a much worse software bug recently.) Now transfer that bug over to Jamison, the design pitbull, and let's put this issue to bed for the next version. So I can get back to my poopy-pants posting.
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