Three surprises and one black dot

As students were filing in for what they thought would be a typical class, a professor announced an impromptu exam. This test was the first surprise.

The professor handed out the exams with the text facing down, as usual. “Turn your papers over and write what you see,” they said.

Surprise two: everybody’s paper had a black dot in the center and nothing else. The reactions and muffled questions suggested everyone was confused.

Soon the sounds turned to pencils scratching paper.

Toward the end of class, the professor picked up all the papers. Holding the stack at the front of the room, they started reading each description out loud.

All of them, without exception, defined the black dot, trying to explain its position in the center of the sheet.

After all had been read, the classroom was silent.

“No one wrote about the white part of the paper,” the professor said. “Everyone focused on the black dot.”

The same thing happens to all of us with our work. We stop noticing the things that are right in front of us. We focus on the black dots that grab our attention.

The third surprise is this really does have to do with developers. You can’t experience your product for the first time. That sort of perspective requires fresh eyes.

That’s the sort of work EveryDeveloper does with clients every day. You too can see your developer content in a new way when you work with us.