Kathy Sierra, author of the Head First books through O’Reilly, used to write a blog until something bad happened (a stalker?).

Anyway, her blog is still up and I happened upon it recently. One of her posts from 2007 is simply fabulous for any company that designs software apps — or for any company choosing software apps to use.

Through a series of funny graphics she compares software apps to employee types. In other words, if your app were an employee, what type would it be?

Here is a sample of one of the 8 “app types”:

In the comments to her post other people join in and suggest additional app, er… employee, types.

It’s a fun and memorable way to take a look at an app to see how well — or poorly — designed it is and how it appears to the user. Her post should be required reading for product managers, software programmers, QA staff — and project managers evaluating new software purchases.  (And maybe for some employees you know.)

Read Kathy Sierra’s post about if apps were employees — warning: some of the language and graphics are “irreverent”.