It sounds very much like you're a whistleblower of some crime, which gives you protection against the sort of retaliation you're describing. See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower for more information about legal protection.
Now, you're not immune to workforce politics so there may still be reasons why you'd be fired but I definitely wouldn't accept it without finding out a lot more about your situation and potentially escalating the complaint.
According to my counsel, whistleblower protection laws wouldn't necessarily apply in this case (IANAL, so I'm unsure as to why.)
Also, this industry does not treat whistleblowers well, so I'm hesitant to take this route, yet. But I want to make sure I follow firm policy very precisely regarding these issues, so I'm consulting closely with legal counsel.
I still cite this article when discussing A/B testing with clients. They often want to bypass the testing process because "it's an obvious change".
"There's no point in making trivial adjustments, ... on a site this big and this complex, it is impossible to predict how even the smallest changes might affect the bottom line. Fixing the wonky images, for instance, might actually hurt Plenty of Fish. Right now, users are compelled to click on people's profiles in order to get to the next screen and view proper headshots."
This isn't to say that everything must be A/B tested, but it's very easy to overlook the fact you can negatively affect the site by making an apparently positive change.
This guy is essentially saying that providing better customer experience would reduce number of clicks and his pageviews and thus his income. I think almost nothing should prevent providing better customer experience. This is also a problem with A/B testing. If your test is optimizing page views or ad revenue as opposed to customer satisfaction, you are probably doing it wrong. Better matrix might be increase in number of unique users or return rate or user churn rate or session abandonments rate etc.
You're being too dogmatic about "user experience". If users find more matches on the site, I'd say their experience improved.
Design principles such as 'the user shouldn't find anything difficult', 'things should be as visually pleasing as possible', etc. can be inconsistent sometimes. A better principle is just looking at whether the user goals are being achieved as effectively as possible.
>This guy is essentially saying that providing better customer experience would reduce number of clicks and his pageviews and thus his income
The problem is that "better" is in the eye of the beholder. That is why split testing is favorable even if the proposed changes seem obviously "better". There is no legitimate reason to skip split testing, but there are a number of reasons to not skip it.
Knowing what you're optimizing for and what your product value is are important. I have seen some highly successful viral platforms destroy themselves with a redesign because they didn't seem to understand the importance of their UI/UX - they thought their idea on its own was great.
I was once refused a consumer credit application for a kitchen appliance because I'd forgotten to sign the back of my credit card. I had a passport and a photo driving license on me at the time but because there wasn't a signature they "couldn't be sure" it was me so they refused to process the application.
I signed it in front of them (which matched my passport signature BTW) but was politely declined as they'd seen the card unsigned.
Another example of security policy getting in the way of actual security.
I had a slightly similar experience: I forgot to sign the back of my card, but the person just asked me to sign it and then made sure it matched my signature on the receipt.
You could have stolen the card of an homonym, so it kind of make sense. Printing a photo of the owner on credit cards would go a very long way and isn't too expensive, but this is a very high inertia industry.
Having something rammed down your neck like you're a 10 year old never really helps. Being a victim helps people remember the basic things. Have a couple of people walking around placing stickers on laptops that are unattended. When the owner returns they'll see a sticker saying something along the lines of "your laptop has been stolen", and they'll quickly feel foolish for dropping their guard.
That sticker solution is much more '10 year old' than a general warning to watch out for your own stuff. It gamifies the situation, rather than being direct about it.
It's not a bad idea, but there are so many things that need considering. For example, you can't have more than 500 investors before you're required to declare your accounts. For a company that's in a growth period rather than a 'making shed loads of money that looks good to your average joe on the street' period, declaring your accounts isn't necessarily a good idea.
Secondly when you have shareholders you have to be seen to be doing things to increase value for your shareholders, and not necessarily for the long term. Raising money doesn't always coincide with making profit, so the companies would be exposing themselves to potentially hindering lawsuits (which would probably be dismissed but are definitely distracting).
An iPhone companion is in the pipeline. Nice to hear your thoughts on how to make it more likely for people to actually use the app, which I think is probably one of the biggest barriers to success with this sort of thing.
There is a huge amount that banks could do to make things easier for their customers but progress seems very slow. I have a friend who works for high street banks and it sounds absolutely horrendous! Better to be safe than sorry for them though I guess.
Fair comment, but I've been programming for 10 years (although I know that's not what your point is getting at). Your fears are fairly moot though, the app isn't networked (yet) and is fully self contained meaning that no one has access to your data except for you.
If I get to a stage where there are enough people demanding networking then I imagine my age won't be much of a concern any more.
I think this is a good lesson. Whatever you show in your video you are using to market your product including you. Just do a video with your voice and screen capture and you'll probably be better off. I felt the video seemed semi-unprofessional.
