Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms • Hacker News Board

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#31

Post by necubi » Sun, Jan 16, 2011, 4:13 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #20

I think developers frequently suffer from "This doesn't flatter my sensibilities, so it must be crap. There is a sense of cosmic justice, so this will hurt the business." I was told, repeatedly, that Mac owners are Jobs-loving HIG fascists who look down on Java apps. Separately, their conversion rate was double PC owners. Who am I supposed to believe, the experts or my lying eyes?

I don't think your criticism is entirely fair; for one, you can only compare OS X users to Windows users, which isn't at issue. Perhaps if you had a native version of your application the conversion rate would be 4x that of Windows. Furthermore, I would suggest that Bingo card applications have a different target audience than developer chat applications and that the former is less bothered by platform inconsistencies.

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#32

Post by pvg » Sun, Jan 16, 2011, 4:13 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #21

al3x wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can dismiss the "verbal minority", or you could treat them as leading indicators. Personally, I'll err on the side of building something that's up to my standards rather than seeing if I can get away with mediocrity. It's entirely possible to focus on both stability and, say, a quality desktop application. If you're under-resourced to accomplish both goals, maybe you didn't plan correctly.

It is also possible that both moving to a native app and achieving five nines of uptime (from four nines) will do less for the business than changing the call to action on the pricing page. Luckily, God gave us AB testing.

Not to mention there's often good money to be made at the nine fives level.

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#33

Post by myth_drannon » Sun, Jan 16, 2011, 4:15 AM UTC

It's all about getting shit done and bringing value to clients. Design fetishism affects very small percentage of both users and builders (which are also sophisticated users)

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#34

Post by aschobel » Sun, Jan 16, 2011, 4:17 AM UTC

cdr wrote: post #5

StavrosK wrote: post #2

Am I the only one who wants a JS-HTML combo app that will be both cross-platform and fast, and not one native app for each platform for most of the apps?

A webapp is not a replacement for a desktop app. There are very legitimate reasons for wanting a desktop app, more for some types of apps than others.

webapp vs native, do users really care about the technology as long as you can make them happy?

The approach we took is native for mobile and webapp for everything else.

Our users are asking for a "desktop app", so we are looking at wrapping our webapp in a SSB and distributing that.

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#35

Post by stephen » Sun, Jan 16, 2011, 4:28 AM UTC

Funny--he started out "after another Campfire outage this week", I thought the post was going to be about the unreliability of Campfire, its platform (ruby, dash of C, AFAIK), and the uptime issues causing user-hostility amongst 37signal's customers.

Which was going to be (and still is) ironic since BankSimple is likely using the same technology stack.

After being down voted: so Alex can call all AIR developers lazy because they don't want to leave their comfort zone and write native apps, but I can't insinuate the same thing about 37signal's not wanting to leave their Ruby comfort zone to make a reliable messaging app? Oh, right, we hate AIR, but love Ruby. Sorry, I missed that there was a double standard. :-)

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#36

Post by gruseom » Sun, Jan 16, 2011, 4:30 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #21

al3x wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can dismiss the "verbal minority", or you could treat them as leading indicators. Personally, I'll err on the side of building something that's up to my standards rather than seeing if I can get away with mediocrity. It's entirely possible to focus on both stability and, say, a quality desktop application. If you're under-resourced to accomplish both goals, maybe you didn't plan correctly.

It is also possible that both moving to a native app and achieving five nines of uptime (from four nines) will do less for the business than changing the call to action on the pricing page. Luckily, God gave us AB testing.

How is this an argument against making a native app? Don't you have to make the native app before you can AB test it?

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#37

Post by patio11 » Sun, Jan 16, 2011, 4:36 AM UTC

necubi wrote: post #31

patio11 wrote: post #20

I think developers frequently suffer from "This doesn't flatter my sensibilities, so it must be crap. There is a sense of cosmic justice, so this will hurt the business." I was told, repeatedly, that Mac owners are Jobs-loving HIG fascists who look down on Java apps. Separately, their conversion rate was double PC owners. Who am I supposed to believe, the experts or my lying eyes?

I don't think your criticism is entirely fair; for one, you can only compare OS X users to Windows users, which isn't at issue. Perhaps if you had a native version of your application the conversion rate would be 4x that of Windows. Furthermore, I would suggest that Bingo card applications have a different target audience than developer chat applications and that the former is less bothered by platform inconsistencie…

It was telling to me at the time that actual business results directly contrary to hypothesized outcomes identified in advance are treated as having no informational value with regards to the original claim.

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#38

Post by yesimahuman » Sun, Jan 16, 2011, 4:43 AM UTC

I'm sorry but I just don't see what the big deal is. Alex names mog as an example of users wanting native desktop support, yet most are just fine using the flash version. It's difficult to draw conclusions based on a developer's perspective (which I've often been guilty of)

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#39

Post by patio11 » Sun, Jan 16, 2011, 4:48 AM UTC

gruseom wrote: post #36

patio11 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also possible that both moving to a native app and achieving five nines of uptime (from four nines) will do less for the business than changing the call to action on the pricing page. Luckily, God gave us AB testing.

How is this an argument against making a native app? Don't you have to make the native app before you can AB test it?

It is an argument about competing priorities when resource constrained: try the cheap stuff prior to dropping six figures of dev time on a feature to rescue business which all available evidence says is one account worth $20 a month. (You could go try to find evidence that users actually want to download native apps. For example, put a download button on your page, then see if anyone clicks it. If nobody does, send me half of your six figure dev budget and you're now strictly better off. It is downright disturbing how many very expensive features fail to change user behavior because business processes optimize for the satisfaction of people other than the people who actually pay money for stuff.)

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#40

Post by irons » Sun, Jan 16, 2011, 5:03 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #37

necubi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your criticism is entirely fair; for one, you can only compare OS X users to Windows users, which isn't at issue. Perhaps if you had a native version of your application the conversion rate would be 4x that of Windows. Furthermore, I would suggest that Bingo card applications have a different target audience than developer chat applications and that the former is less bothered by platform inconsistencie…

It was telling to me at the time that actual business results directly contrary to hypothesized outcomes identified in advance are treated as having no informational value with regards to the original claim.

So, your new working hypothesis is what, that Mac users secretly prefer Java UIs? That might prove too much.

I don't think it's a secret that Mac users are, by and large, more comfortable than Windows users at paying for and installing software. The paradox of choice is in less egregious effect, and they have fewer scars from past attempts.