Channel Your Inner April Fool

April 1st is always a tricky day to be online.  Even pre-web, I remember when LambdaMOO had a LambdaMUCK (Or was that MUSH?) April Fools event.  April Fools pranks challenge your fundamental assumptions.  Some April Fools pranks are funny and obvious, some are not and some fall into a strange realm of inspired wonderfulness.  It struck me today that a lot of things that make for a compelling web application are the same things that make a great April Fools project so wonderful.  They’re unexpected, they reward the visitor and they encapsulate a creative concept in a limited scope.  April Fools projects have to be limited since we don’t have a lot of time to work on them and they have to be interesting since that’s the whole point.  It’s a shame that so many projects are hum-drum day to day, full of never ending feature creep, only to have a burst of great creativity once a year that only lasts one day.  April Fools may be a great excuse to think outside the box and create a magical user experience, but we should be doing that every day.