How the right programmers cook Easter eggs

Office work got about two hours, no less. And all because of the maker.

It began with the fact that he inserted an easter egg with a toy on the site, and everyone stuck to it. Even the director was seen playing.

Earlier, I didn’t really think about this phenomenon - well, Easter eggs and Easter eggs, funny, but nothing special. But this case allowed me to look at the question from an unexpected angle. I discovered that Easter eggs are much more than just a joke. This is a way of expressing one’s personality. Moreover, it is a way to communicate. And not only between the developers and site visitors, but also within the team.
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Diskleimer: “Easter Egg” or simply “Easter Egg” (eng. Easter Egg) is a secret left in a game, film or software by its creators. Easter eggs - something like a joke for attentive users, players or viewers. Finding easter eggs is usually quite difficult. To do this, you need to do something non-standard: click in the right place several times, enter a certain sequence of characters, etc. Read more - from Vika.

Why do developers leave Easter eggs on sites? And why do artists sign their works, automakers put logos on cars, clothing manufacturers sew ticklish company labels on internal seams, and teenagers write on the elevator wall “Here was Vasya”? The desire of all is one - to leave their mark on history. Do not want to somehow mark that you did it? Introduce an individual touch into the work, make it unique, say something to the whole world through it? And at the same time have a little fun.

What are they like?

There is a popular belief that Easter eggs are the result of hooligan tricks and they are absolute evil. Something like graffiti in the stairwell. Let's see if there is a grain of truth in this opinion. So, conditionally divide Easter eggs into six types:

Text. The easiest to implement Easter eggs, is a funny, ridiculous, witty, obscene ... comment in the code. Great harm can not bring. A normal user will never see her. A typical example from the site artlebedev.ru:



Dismemberment. Blood, guts and all the consequences. A vivid example of gazon-avangard.ru (wait for the dudes to meet and click on one of them). At first glance, the idea is very dubious. But, oddly enough, it is not only approved by the owners of the site, but also deliberately and even very successfully used by them for advertising purposes. In the less successful case, such Easter eggs can ruin the reputation of the resource and / or the career of a developer.

Spicy. For examples - in Google. For reasons of political correctness did not publish links here. These easter eggs are very popular and certainly provide excellent traffic to the site. But not every resource owner will be happy to find a beautiful stranger on one of his pages. Imagine such Easter eggs (as well as the previous one) on the nursing home site. So what do you think? In short, use with caution.

Instructive. The creators of Easter eggs are good guys and they strive to make the world a better place. These Easter eggs appeal to our bright side and awaken positive emotions. A great example - doroga78.ru - in the footer, click through the traffic lights and never be on the road again.



Gaming. This is perhaps my favorite kind of easter eggs. And the site owners are quite loyal to them. This category includes everything you can play with: twist, twirl, poke the mouse, control keys, etc. They are very emotional, funny, funny and sometimes nostalgic. Such easter eggs can be found even on serious resources. A couple of examples:
chtodelat.com - click on the site header
convead.ru/demo - click on the laptop screen (control arrows).

Interface. To this group I took all the Easter eggs, changing the interface or functionality of the site. There are large respected and even international resources. For example:
- Google Chrome - write the word tilt or askew in the address bar and enjoy. (Tilt means "tilt", and askew - "askew, crooked").
- In Skype, it turns out, there are hidden emoticons. For example, try sending it to someone: (bug) The remaining emoticons are here

- Vkontakte - instead of the usual interface, you can set the Soviet or pre-revolutionary. Links to switch are in the footer of the page.

What do we have?

If such giants as Chrome and Vkontakte use Easter eggs, then it is not so bad? Of course, on such resources there are only professionally made Easter eggs without a bloody mess and undressed women. They usually organically fit into the concept of the resource itself, bring joy to those who find them and do not offend anyone. Summarizing all of the above, we can formulate a few simple tips for young Paschal-makers. So, what not to do if you do not want to get stuck:

1. Defame the reputation of the resource. Insults to the owner of the resource and various kinds of mockery of the site itself will not exactly please the authorities, and your reputation can be badly spoiled. From such things it is better to refuse at least out of respect for yourself.
2. Hide Easter eggs from the owner. Here, I think, many will disagree. Opening the cards, you, of course, reduce the level of heroism and fun, but you do not harm either yourself or the resource.
3. Turn Easter eggs into advertising. In itself, the use of easter eggs in marketing is normal, and this will be written below. But, for example, showing a banner by clicking on a hidden pixel is a bad form. People will feel cheated. Be sincere, make Easter eggs for fun.
4. Use without the need for blood guts and other trash. On some sites this is normal, on others it is completely unacceptable. Rely on common sense.
5. Overdoing with Easter eggs. Everything is good in moderation. No need to hang eight easter eggs per page. In the general case, one is enough. The entire resource is more than three - already bust.

In any case, we must remember that Easter eggs are just a tool. And how you use it - for the benefit or to the detriment of yourself and your resource is your business.

Why not play?

No one bothers to use the easter mechanism as an obvious marketing device according to all the rules of gamification (from the English gamification) - to involve visitors in the search for secret content and reward those who found it. Suppose you have an online store and on the nose the New Year holidays. You can hide secret codes in some commodity cards or even just pictures with funny deer. Who will find at least one such secret - to him a discount or a gift.



Firstly , it will increase the visitor engagement - they will revise the many pages of the site in search of Easter eggs, you see, they will buy something.
Secondly , they will attract friends to help them find hidden pictures.
Third , they will get a lot of positive, and remember the site. And you will see people who love their work and are ready to work just for the sake of an idea and imbued with confidence in you.
And fourthly , the traffic and time spent by people on the site will increase, which will positively affect the attitude of the search engines towards it.

In short, sheer good.

Easter eggs, team spirit and the right programmers

However, not all managers respond positively to Easter eggs on their resource. As our layout designer told, in his youth he left one on the site of a large car dealer, and the customer found it and gave it a stick.

In my opinion, from the customer’s side it was short-sighted. After all, if a person is so passionate about programming that he does this in his spare time and creates his own creative projects, then this is the right programmer. A wise manager will appreciate this, smooth out, if necessary, sharp corners and get an excellent team member, as well as a huge bonus for his project.

Moreover, the introduction of Easter eggs can have a positive impact on the whole team. This is a great tool for team building! The team has a feeling of involvement in something forbidden and hooligan, which can not but bring together. All participants imbued with the utmost deserved respect and sympathy for the developers and learn them from a new side.

Total

Easter eggs - is it good or bad? Yes and no. It all depends on: common sense, directness of hands, the cultural level of the developer, relations with the authorities, the subject of the site and many other factors. It is a tool, and the tool is thin and unpredictable. It is not always easy to determine whether it will bring harm or benefit, or even be wasted.

The beauty of Easter eggs in their spontaneity, lightness and naturalness. They do not need to get hung up, spend a lot of time and effort and wait for the indispensable marketing effect. Why not just express yourself through Easter eggs, communicate with visitors, respect and delight them. They will appreciate and respond to you in return.