If people have a positive customer experience, they tell a few friends, but if they have a negative one, they tell everyone—and now that social media have made sharing so easy, no flaw, delay, or mistake seems too small to complain about. More than ever, it's important to create positive customer experiences.

The next time you’re designing an “awesome” new feature, take a step back and think, awesome for whom? Is this the kind of feature that will be understood and enjoyed by your target users? Or should you rethink how it might be perceived by your audience? When it comes to design, you have to know your users.

As our world becomes more complex, the demand for technical testing expertise is going up. While there will always be a need for domain specialists, we also need just as many technical testing roles—particularly with programming skills. Mike Sowers has some ideas on developing additional technical expertise.