This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details
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This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details
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Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details
#2A vaguely related point to this is how the problems with getting details right are related to the simplicity or complexity of the product.
The more complex the product, the more details it has, and the harder it is to get all of those details "right". Sometimes it's impossible to get all of them "right" because different market segments have different ideas of what "right" is.
That's one of the core reasons I recommend that people start with smaller, simpler products. The easiest way of avoiding getting details wrong is to not have them in the first place.
It's much easier to delight a customer with a small simple product - because there are far fewer things for you to foul up :-)
Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details
#3Hold on a second, Jeff!
> Your software, your product, is nothing more than a collection of tiny details. If you don't obsess over all those details, if you think it's OK to concentrate on the "important" parts and continue to ignore the other umpteen dozen tiny little ways your product annoys the people who use it on a daily basis – you're not creating great software. Someone else is.
I think the true moral of his story contradicts his conclusion.
He and his wife had a problem: They didn't like manually feeding their cats. So they bought a couple of automatic cat feeders and enjoyed owning them—despite several small, annoying flaws. In fact, he and his wife dutifully employed those feeders for five years until he noticed (and purchased) the company's newer, improved version!
I liked the essay, but I suppose Jeff and I disagree on what the story teaches us.
This story is about a company that identified a pain point (manually feeding cats is annoying) and created a product that alleviated the pain (an automatic cat feeder) despite several flaws (a bad color, an annoying button guard, and a difficult to clean food bowl, to name a few). Over time, the company resolved those flaws, but they didn't wait until all of the flaws were resolved before initially shipping their product. Instead, they shipped a useful, albeit imperfect product, and earned themselves at least two repeat customers.
Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details
#4> We never changed the actual feed schedule, but just changing the time for daylight savings was so incredibly awkward and contorted we had to summarize the steps from the manual on a separate piece of paper as a "cheat sheet"
Not really related to the point, but should you be adjusting the time for daylight savings at all? I mean, the cats don't care about the arbitrary 24 hours we humans use to divide up the day, so wouldn't adjusting the time for daylight saving just seem like an arbitrary change for no good reason to a cat?
Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details
#5> We never changed the actual feed schedule, but just changing the time for daylight savings was so incredibly awkward and contorted we had to summarize the steps from the manual on a separate piece of paper as a "cheat sheet" Not really related to the point, but should you be adjusting the time for daylight savings at all? I mean, the cats don't care about the arbitrary 24 hours we humans use to divide up the day, s…
Ha, this is interesting! Didn't even cross my mind, but makes a lot of sense.
Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details
#6> We never changed the actual feed schedule, but just changing the time for daylight savings was so incredibly awkward and contorted we had to summarize the steps from the manual on a separate piece of paper as a "cheat sheet" Not really related to the point, but should you be adjusting the time for daylight savings at all? I mean, the cats don't care about the arbitrary 24 hours we humans use to divide up the day, s…
I'm pretty sure you meant to say that in a serious tone, but I couldn't help but laugh because cats.
Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details
#7Hold on a second, Jeff! > Your software, your product, is nothing more than a collection of tiny details. If you don't obsess over all those details, if you think it's OK to concentrate on the "important" parts and continue to ignore the other umpteen dozen tiny little ways your product annoys the people who use it on a daily basis – you're not creating great software. Someone else is. I think the true moral of his s…
umm.... i think he focuses on the merits of the new product and the fact that the company eventually paid attention on the details, otherwise he would probably go for something else
Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details
#8Hold on a second, Jeff! > Your software, your product, is nothing more than a collection of tiny details. If you don't obsess over all those details, if you think it's OK to concentrate on the "important" parts and continue to ignore the other umpteen dozen tiny little ways your product annoys the people who use it on a daily basis – you're not creating great software. Someone else is. I think the true moral of his s…
Both aspects are valid, but I think what you point out is also very important. I know several people who are not launching their product because they are doing yet another iteration of user tests and fine tuning. On the other hand my experience has been that if your product provides anything useful for people, they will be able to extract it. I am often surprised at the complex user interfaces people master - stuff I personally would never have the patience to put up with, but "normal people" somehow master it, even if at the same time they might not be aware what a browser is. (One example: Facebook groups, horrible interface but apparently people use it).
Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details
#9> We never changed the actual feed schedule, but just changing the time for daylight savings was so incredibly awkward and contorted we had to summarize the steps from the manual on a separate piece of paper as a "cheat sheet" Not really related to the point, but should you be adjusting the time for daylight savings at all? I mean, the cats don't care about the arbitrary 24 hours we humans use to divide up the day, s…
I'm not a cat and it still seems like an arbitrary change.
Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details
#10Hold on a second, Jeff! > Your software, your product, is nothing more than a collection of tiny details. If you don't obsess over all those details, if you think it's OK to concentrate on the "important" parts and continue to ignore the other umpteen dozen tiny little ways your product annoys the people who use it on a daily basis – you're not creating great software. Someone else is. I think the true moral of his s…
Switching costs.
They already owned the old version, having paid for it and installed it in their home. The issues were a minor annoyance but the effort to find a new one and risk it being worse was far greater.
However software, especially web applications generally have a low switching cost. So while your application might fulfill a need if you don't fix the annoyances you make it all the easier for a competitor the sweep in a grab your business.
The history of the internet is littered with examples both large and small.