01.31.07
Is good enough, good enough?
It’s very difficult to get a perfect user experience on the first try. Most of the time, creating a product with a great user experience takes many iterations of design and development. But with rushed schedules, who has the time for that nonsense? Is the experience “good enough”? SHIP IT. Fix it in the next version.
This is the kind of environment many software developers find themselves in. The resulting user experience generally is still pretty good, but not perfect. So what’s a developer to do when improvements are needed but time and priorities don’t allow it?
Too often I hear the words: “We want to fix that too, but we really need something new in the next version.” Product management will end up saying bug fixes are delayed and tweaks aren’t made because it’s important for the next version to have some cool new feature that “makes it worth downloading”. Why can’t a better experience be reason enough to make it worth downloading? The way I see it, an obsession with features and marketing will only lead to a product that does many things, but none of them really well. I’m not saying it will be a horrible experience; for most users it might be good enough. So if the users aren’t complaining, it must be all fine and dandy, right? But wait! Users generally don’t realize what they are missing until they are shown how great it can really be. So can a company driven by wow and sparkle, which compresses schedules and never gives enough time to get it right, ever release great products? I guess only time will tell.