🐣 Reviving Easter Eggs

Hello! Adam Thornhill here. ‘The Podcast Guy’ saving you 10 hours a week.

Enjoy the 121st Podup, with special thanks to ChatGPT Consulting.

Today, we’ll dive into the best insights and ideas from Rework.

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Software often prioritizes function over form, but Easter Eggs present a unique opportunity to infuse a bit of surprise and delight into your user experience. HEY does exactly this. They introduced a playful new feature that rewards power users and adds a touch of humor to your day.

The ‘Fuck No’ feature

HEY, our email system, has a system called the screener. The first time you receive an email from someone, you can give them a thumbs up to say you want to continue hearing from them or a thumbs down to say you never want to hear from them again.

We had this idea to go beyond the standard ‘No’. When someone sends you spam, you can hold down Shift + F to say ‘Fuck no’. The thumbs down icon changes to a middle finger. It doesn’t do anything differently, but it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling. 

Software and work in general should be more light hearted. There’s so much seriousness everywhere in business. We saw hundreds of ‘OMG, this is the best thing ever’ kind of Tweets. A lot of people thought this was a good reason to try HEY.

Jason Fried

Easter Egg nostalgia

There has been a long history of Easter Eggs in software development. This is something all software used to have. If you pushed this explicit keyword combo or clicked on an icon five times in a row, something would change. It was fun. 

Sure, a few people thought the ‘Fuck no’ feature was unprofessional, but we didn’t ship HEY with this as the default. Easter Eggs are fun because you have to find and learn about them, then actively do something yourself so you’re in on the joke. 

David Heinemeier Hansson 

Why it matters

HEY is giving a subtle nod to its frustrated users who get inundated with spam. HEY is saying ‘We stand with you’ by recognizing their plight. By utilizing the ‘Us vs Them’ strategy, HEY creates a common enemy, increasing brand affinity and retention.

But, that’s not all. By secretly turning a routine task into a moment of joy, HEY is giving its users a chance to earn some much needed social currency. Users are privy to rare and exciting information, so they share it to with others to look good.

Next steps

1. Embrace creativity. Encourage your development team to brainstorm Easter Eggs that reflect your company’s culture and values.

2. Keep it subtle. Design Easter Eggs that are unobtrusive, ensuring they don’t interfere with the user’s primary tasks.

3. Celebrate discovery. Make the discovery of Easter Eggs a rewarding and share-worthy experience.

4. Reap the rewards. Enjoy the ancillary benefits of Easter Eggs, such as team building and talent acquisition.

5. Monitor engagement. Track how your users interact with Easter Eggs to gauge their impact. 

Your thoughts?

Thanks to ChatGPT Consulting for making this post possible…

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