Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details

codinghorror.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 39 posts

Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details

#11

Post by lifeisstillgood »

codeka wrote: post #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, s…

If your cats sit on your head at 5am to remind you to feed them, then if your auto-feeder thinks 5am is another hour off, your cats will not. they will howl and sit on your head, only now its 4am.

Arbitrary change or not, at 4 am cat on face always wins

Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details

#12

Post by espeed »

codeka wrote: post #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, s…

That's exactly what I was thinking. And the feeding schedule is at 8am so it's not clear how the 5am/4am thing plays out.

Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details

#13

Post by nadam »

danielmiller wrote: post #3

Hold 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…

I am not a marketing expert, but my reaction to this article was that it pretty much depends on what 'market phase' we are in.

In a new market with no competitors what matters is that someone created an automatic cat feeder at all.

In a more mature market with several competitors those small details matter more.

In a very mature market maybe several competitors get the tiny details right, so maybe building a brand matters a lot...

Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details

#14

Post by mmahemoff »

nadam wrote: post #13
danielmiller wrote: post #3

Hold 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…

I am not a marketing expert, but my reaction to this article was that it pretty much depends on what 'market phase' we are in. In a new market with no competitors what matters is that someone created an automatic cat feeder at all. In a more mature market with several competitors those small details matter more. In a very mature market maybe several competitors get the tiny details right, so maybe building a brand ma…

The product in the early phase was called a Dancing Bear in the book, "The Inmates are Running the Asylum". You don't need the bear to move like a professional dancer because "look at that, it's a bear ... and it's dancing!". The details start to matter when more dancing bears come on the scene.

Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details

#15

Post by rrreese »

danielmiller wrote: post #3

Hold 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…

It seems to me there are two parts too this.

Firstly there is value in solving the problem. It didn't matter that the feeder had rough edges, it did the job. That's ultimately what matters. If it didn't feed the cats it would be considered faulty.

Secondly there is value from offering a superior experience, offering better and additional features, superior design etc. If you're product doesn't offer these it isn't broken - but it does have room for improvement.

If my phone can't ring people or text it's broken. But I can spend £20 for a phone like that. A phone that lets me send email, check twitter or browse the web is a lot mor valuable. It's why Apple and Samsung can sell phones for hundreds of pounds.

Does your product solve people's problems? If it does it's valuable. That collection of details though, fix or implement those and your product is a lot more valuable.

Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details

#16

Post by alister »

codeka wrote: post #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, s…

In the spirit of the OP's point about tiny details, I can offer you two reasons why setting DST matters:

(1) I want my cats to be fed just before I go to sleep so the cats have the maximal period of full belly when I go to bed. I go to bed at 11:00 pm. Keep in mind that I observe DST changes for myself. But if I never adjust the feeder for standard/daylight time, then either the cats will be hungry until the midnight feeding or they'll be fed an hour early at 10:00 pm. In either case, they are more likely to wake me up for food during the night.

(2) The cat feeder is in my bedroom and since I have it set to feed the cats just before bedtime, I don't want it making noise an hour after I fall asleep. That's what would happen when I've switched to daylight time but the feeder hasn't.

The point is that there can be legitimate reasons why you'd care about a DST adjustment even if your cats don't.

Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details

#17

Post by nthj »

nadam wrote: post #13
danielmiller wrote: post #3

Hold 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…

I am not a marketing expert, but my reaction to this article was that it pretty much depends on what 'market phase' we are in. In a new market with no competitors what matters is that someone created an automatic cat feeder at all. In a more mature market with several competitors those small details matter more. In a very mature market maybe several competitors get the tiny details right, so maybe building a brand ma…

Related is 37signals' "Ignore Details Early On" [1]

So shipping is a feature, but continual improvement once you've shipped is necessary, too.

[1] http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch04_Ignore_Details_Early_O...

Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details

#18

Post by keithpeter »

Produce wrote: post #9
codeka wrote: post #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, s…

I'm not a cat and it still seems like an arbitrary change.

I am not a cat either, but I do live 52.5 degrees North and quite often visit 57.5 degrees North. Daylight saving is not arbitrary for daylight liking non-cats

Re: This Is All Your App Is: A Collection Of Tiny Details

#19

Post by dsr_ »

Nobody's mentioned the most important point here.

The improvements to this product were so substantial that all of Jeff's audience now has some degree of brand awareness and a positive bias towards it.

When was the last time an upgraded product -- one that you didn't even get discounted -- made you so effusive?

Post reply on HN