In Apps & Humans #1, we talked about human personality traits that we can assign to applications.

This time we go in the opposite direction, identifying features specific to applications that we can reverse engineer and transform into desirable human behaviors.

What do we want from an app?

Using apps for so many years, we’ve developed certain preferences and expectations about them.

Typically, we want an app to:

Have a user interface that is intuitive, easy to work with, uncluttered by things we don’t use.
Be performant, allowing us to get the results quickly, with the minimum amount of effort from us.
Be compatible with other contemporary tools and technologies.

The user interface: interaction patterns

In human terms, our “user interface” is about how we present ourselves and how we interact with others.

It starts with how we greet each other: from a simple “hi”, we can perceive a message, which can be anything from “I’m happy to see you” to “I’m in a bad mood, leave me alone”.

When a problem arises and people need our help, do we simplify life for them, or do we complicate it?

In the workplace, we have many interactions and we depend on each other.

Confusius Media Player — A slightly confusing, non-standard user interface.

If our “user interface” seems too complicated or unpredictable, people will tend to avoid us when they can and won’t be so cooperative when we need their help.

We can choose to be “user friendly”.

The performance: reliability and productivity

Just as we want our applications to be fast and stable, others rely on us to respect our commitments and be mindful of their time.

We can focus on:

Negotiating realistic expectations related to what we can deliver.
Making the effort to deliver on time.
Notifying in advance those who are affected if we are unable to deliver what we agreed upon. This gives them some time to adapt and respond to the situation.
Being less of a bottleneck to others:
- Responding to emails without too much delay, or at least sending a short reply with an estimation of when we can deliver a complete answer.
- Sometimes we need to specifically ask if others are blocked waiting for our tasks to be finished. Human communication is never perfect and it’s useful to clarify this, especially for long running tasks.
- Knowing when others are dependent on our tasks, we can adjust the priority (or discuss priorities with the appropriate people), so that the least time is spent waiting. It also helps to avoid deadlocks (two parties which are blocked waiting for one another to finish their tasks).
- Keeping in mind that there may be additional tasks we need to take care of, like submitting timesheet information, participating in various surveys or training sessions within the company. These may sometimes seem less important, but they are part of our job too and some of our colleagues (e.g. from management or accounting) depend on us to deliver them on time.
Sharing valuable information that we already have to those who need it.
Preparing for meetings so that everyone’s time is used efficiently.
Doing our own research before asking for help, so that we don’t ask questions which we can easily answer ourselves.

The compatibility: adaptability and cooperation

Think about a game you enjoyed playing 10 years ago. If you would play it today you will probably still enjoy it, but you’ll realize how much things have changed, how some other games made better decisions in terms of user interaction, or simply how much the graphics capabilities have improved tremendously.

My point is, our knowledge may become outdated. I think we all need to allocate some time for learning, to keep up with changes in our fields of competence and to be open to other tools and technologies than the ones we are used to.

Another point is collaboration: we want apps to exchange files in various formats and be compatible with one another. In human terms, people are more likely to enjoy working with us if our collaboration style can accommodate theirs.

Conclusions and recommendations

Our go-to apps can simplify work for us by behaving in certain ways that we expect and appreciate.

By adopting some of these behaviors and pairing them with human qualities like humor or kindness, I believe we can make the workplace more enjoyable for everyone.

Who is this guide for?

This 5-page PDF document is intended for practical people who prefer a straightforward approach to interpersonal skills, rather than hype.

I write from the perspective of a technical person and a human being, describing strategies that I’ve learned and used in my 15+ years of working in the IT industry.

Excerpts from the guide:

Why bother with work relationships?

I sometimes hear people saying “I’m a technical person, I don’t need emotional intelligence”, or making a similar statement.

As a technical person myself, I understand why, because in a broad sense, our main tasks involve dealing with complex technology to solve problems for people who are less technical than us. It is then logical to ask why we should invest our precious time in developing skills that are unrelated to the technology itself.

For me, one important reason is that we tend to interact very frequently with people and depend on each other for information, support and access to various tools and technologies.

With healthy work relationships, the interactions become more enjoyable and efficient.

What are the benefits of stronger work relationships?

I can see various benefits of developing strong work relationships with people inside and outside the company (e.g. clients and customers):

It feels good to work with people we know. We need social interaction and since we are spending so much time at the office, why not make it enjoyable?
Having shared goals with others and building something together creates a sense of belonging and meaning, which are powerful human needs.
They might provide guidance and support when we are in need.
They will be less critical towards us when we make mistakes and more focused on what needs to be done to fix them.
It’s easier to negotiate anything with people we have good work relationships with.
Having strong connections within the company (or even simply being known by others), minimizes the chances of us being let go, when the company goes through difficult times.
People are not bound to a single company. When we need to change jobs, they can recommend us to other companies or even facilitate new business opportunities for us, if we have built a history of mutual trust and appreciation.
If we ever start a business and need a team of competent and reliable people, we will be in a better position to negotiate with them than most other companies.

To obtain your free copy, simply subscribe to the Balance Crafters Newsletter.

The guide, “Strategies for building stronger work relationships” will be available for you to access and download once you subscribe.
I strongly believe in sending valuable information with every email and won’t abuse your inbox.
You can of course unsubscribe at any time if you don’t want to receive the newsletter anymore.
The subscription to the Balance Crafters Newsletter is handled by a company named Sendinblue, which I trust, together with over 150,000 companies.
By clicking the button below, you will be redirected to the subscription form hosted on their website. For reference, here are Sendinblue’s Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and of course the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy of BalanceCrafters.com.

Subscribe and Download the GUIDE