Shoes and software

I bought a new pair of shoes when I went to New York City the last time. I am trying to find shoes and boots that look good with both skirts and pants, fit properly, and are good for a full day of standing/7 miles of walking. This is a pretty tall order, as you know if you buy many women’s shoes. I found a pair I thought was promising and broke them in by walking 30 miles in a week in them. There was just one rub. Right over my left toe.

I complained about this to my friend when I got back, and she told me that since I’d bought them from an actual store that specializes in shoes, I could take them in and get the store to stretch a little spot over the rub. And they did! And the spot stopped rubbing. But by then I’d irritated it enough so that my regular shoes were rubbing it. Well, it’s in no way serious enough to see a podiatrist over, kind of a normal thing that happens to feet, and the advice is to wear shoes that fit you properly.

I fell down a research rabbit hole, and did you know? You can buy shoe lasts and little carved nubs that fit into the holes in the lasts, and you put them in your shoe and add some shoe stretcher, and you can tailor your shoes? Those of you in certain age and class categories, who grew up wearing leather shoes, did know this. I just learned this, in the start of my fifth decade, and it’s almost as revolutionary as when I realized I could just sew my own dresses so they fit properly. I don’t have to accept that my feet or body are just going to be slightly ill-served by the average, I can fix it. If I have the right kind of shoes and the money for the tools, which is another post.

I think this is an essential difference between software users and software creators. Software users almost always have a rub, a spot where they have to conform to the way the software expects them to behave, an irritation point. They don’t know that they could change it or they don’t have the tools to change it. It’s very “fixed mindset”. This is how the software behaves, and that’s just how it is. Software creators understand that there is almost always some way to tweak their tech to fit them better. A software package is not immutable, but rather something that you can tinker with and change – a “growth mindset”.

I want more of the world to have a growth mindset about their tech – everything from rooting their phones to eliminate software they don’t want, to turning off push notifications, to hiding screens they don’t care about. That’s one of the things I’m excited about in my work with LaunchDarkly. Currently we’re working at much larger scales than individual preferences – think about the revolution in shoes when we started designing for left and right feet – but eventually the idea that you can customize your experience of technology will get more and more accessible and democratic. That’s thrilling, because everyone should have shoes that fit their particular feet and software that fits their particular needs.