What is software for? From traffic lights, to hospital records, to the small miracle of a smartphone, most software is so well integrated into daily activity that we tend to forget it's there. Whether you're a teacher, a nurse, an entrepreneur, a student or retiree, the one thing we all have in common is that our way of life is made possible by the technology of innovators who came before us. Every advancement builds upon the last. Rudimentary tools once crafted by the first modern humans have developed into highly complex instruments that have transcend previous limitations. Software is a tool so sophisticated that it exists without weight or substance, yet it's everywhere, and it changes everything.

What is software for? It doesn't exist for the sake of itself. Good software makes it easier to do what you already do, and helps you accomplish what you couldn't do before. Without technology, our culture would be virtually unrecognizable. It's everywhere, and it's here to stay. We've just set out to make it better.

In 1995, Steve Jobs declared that a computer was a bicycle for the mind. If software is also a bicycle for the mind, then its true purpose is to take uniquely human capabilities - like creativity, decision-making, and empathy - and accelerate them. If we've come this far in the past twenty years, from ancient IBMs with green text to software that responds to our fingertips, just imagine where we've yet to go.

The most fascinating thing about this is that our species built both the bicycle and the computer. Humans are toolmakers by nature. In fact, our minds are hardwired to seek and build the bicycles. Technology isn't the opposite of humanity. To engage with technology is to be human. That's why we refuse to be clinical. That's why we approach our work as thinking, feeling, complicated creatures, and we think of our end-users in the same way.

Good technology blends in. On first release, a really amazing piece of software gathers attention for its innovation, effectiveness, and beauty. However, as time marches on, something interesting happens: Good technology becomes virtually invisible, and bad technology keeps sticking out. That's because good technology runs smoothly alongside human behavior. It may hasten the current, or broaden the river, but it never runs counter. Good technology requires seamless form and valid function.

When software doesn't conform to human behavior, it requires you to act unnaturally, or to memorize an unintuitive set of steps. Software like this isn't built to last. People will tolerate bad interface if that's the only option, but when something comes along that is easier to use, nicer to look at, and eminently more useful, they shift. We believe that good technology gets out of the way and lets people do what they already do best.

We've become software experts so you don't have to be. With each innovation, that relationship between humans and technology gets easier to manage. In the past, even a personal computer required a fairly advanced level of expertise. Now, software can respond to your voice or your touch. It can learn your habits. If we at Mutually Human can continue to improve software by making it more accessible, more powerful, and more pertinent, then that's exactly what we want to do. We love technology, but not as an end unto itself. We love it for the impact it has on human lives.

We've committed to this idea that software should always be built with the end-user in mind. Ultimately, we care about the experience of the person using our products and services, and we create these experiences through solid functionality, design, interface, and content. Only humans are capable of building software this way. Only humans can draw together all these disparate facts and strings of thought, synthesize them and produce something new. Only humans can empathize. Only humans have the imagination to truly innovate.

Good software can't be rolled off an assembly line. It can't be produced by a chain of people performing one highly specialized task after another, so that's not how we operate. When our clients, who are experts in their own fields, bring ideas to us, they expect us to share their goals. They believe, as we do, that good software can make peoples' lives better. We've seen firsthand how good work can improve health, education, accessibility, entertainment, enterprise, finance and more. Good concepts require good craftsmanship. That's why we do what we do.