When users never use the features they asked for • Hacker News Board

Re: When users never use the features they asked for

#221

Post by dagw » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 6:59 AM UTC

stnmtn wrote: post #215

dagw wrote: post #186

I once spent 6+ month working on a feature that was to be one of the flagship features of our next major release. We'd talked to several major customers about it and gotten lots of positive feedback. Once released, virtually no one used it and no one cared. On the flip side the by far most impactful feature I've ever added to any software in any point in my career came a couple of years later when working at the same…

I find this fascinating. Could you lay out what that feature did, generally?

It was an app for viewing, exploring and analyzing certain large, complex heterogeneous datasets. Both features where, at their core, essentially an additional novel way to view and explore that data. It's just that the second one really clicked with a lot of people in ways no one predicted.

If was to draw some conclusions, it would probably be that the successful feature made a common task a little bit easier for a lot of people in basically all use cases, while the 'failed' feature attempted to add an entirely new type of analysis/exploration to the application that it turned out people didn't need as much as they thought they might.

Re: When users never use the features they asked for

#222

Post by gveiga » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 8:33 AM UTC

I wrote an article some time ago on this exact mistake that product teams do. I called it the baby bias: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/baby-bias-how-start-product-d...

Re: When users never use the features they asked for

#223

Post by hedberg10 » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 9:23 AM UTC

diskzero wrote: post #134

AmericanChopper wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst programming experience of my life related to lost source code. I was working for a place that had a service running from a Java app that was customized for each customer, about 200 copies of roughly the same app. There was source control at some point, and when a new customer was being on boarded they’d just make the customizations they required, compile the app, and deploy it. By the time I worked there (y…

On the topic of lost source code... we had a few blessed binaries that were vital to building System 8 and System 9 at Apple. There was a single build machine that could generate these binaries from other object code but the source was long gone. Oh please oh please old Quadra 700, don't give out on us! Those days are over right? Surely nothing like that is happening with OSX...

Every company has a shrine to vital things that can not break under any circumstances. We have a holy Win7 Thinkpad.

Often there are gurus too and monks live in the caves next to the relics, trying to guard the sacred grounds and spreading the gospel.

Re: When users never use the features they asked for

#224

Post by antifa » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

maigret wrote: post #164

_the_inflator wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly these 2 points. I as a PM for a platform may sound arrogant, however I strictly adhere to the phrase: Only what customerS need, not what they want. I also rely on numbers and classification: does this feature help one or more user? Which type? Power User(s)? Everyday normal users? Is this just emotional, a want or need? How much does a user benefit from the change? Can we do better, are we missing something (…

> clutter and distraction. Users of all kind are allergic to noise It's actually worse than this - additional information and option hinders the users. It make them less able to find, understand and successfully perform otherwise easy tasks. At some point, it also make them stop use the product. Those major drawbacks are important to state to all stakeholders.

That's weird, I always thought the absence of additional information and options were what was hindering me from performing easy tasks.

Re: When users never use the features they asked for

#225

Post by oceanghost » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 5:57 AM UTC

KronisLV wrote: post #160

oceanghost wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's brutal. You were right to quit. There's a certain personality type that will never appreciate or reward hard work.

> There's a certain personality type that will never appreciate or reward hard work. Now, how would someone figure out these personality types ahead of time? Any red flags to detect people or workplaces to avoid in a professional capacity?

I think the problem ties largely in mental illness... Sociopathic behavior, psychopathic behavior are pretty much the norm in C level management.

There's a book called "Dangerous Personalities" which takes a dive into practical psychology for these sorts of people.

Re: When users never use the features they asked for

#226

Post by marcus_holmes » Sat, Oct 02, 2021, 11:01 AM UTC

donatj wrote: post #198

marcus_holmes wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the "feature spiral of death" when a customer's feature request is really just them trying to say "no" politely. There is no amount of features that will make them say "yes". But once they've started down this road it's very difficult for them to admit that they didn't want any of the features they're asking for, they just want you to leave them alone.

I never even considered this. Given the number of times we've built some really stupid feature because a potential big client had it as a requirement, I bet at least a few were just telling us to go away.

The standard way of finding this out is to ask them to pay at least something towards developing the feature. If they're genuinely interested but genuinely need this feature, this is reasonable and they'll be agreeable. If they're not actually interested, then this doesn't make any sense for them and they'll refuse.

Re: When users never use the features they asked for

#227

Post by oceanghost » Sun, Oct 03, 2021, 5:00 AM UTC

Slartie wrote: post #208

jaywalk wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you hit the nail on the head with that.

I'm pretty sure about that, especially since One For All is a brand dedicated to universal remotes. If I had to take another guess, I would even nail it down on him having been employed by a company called Universal Electronics, which produced a series of universal remotes called "JP1 remotes" in hardware hacker circles (see for example http://www.hifi-remote.com/files/help/The%20WHAT%20and%20WHY... ) and also acted…

Aye, you win. Zilog it was :-)

Re: When users never use the features they asked for

#228

Post by golergka » Mon, Oct 04, 2021, 10:53 AM UTC

amatecha wrote: post #94

rkagerer wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great advice, but it's untrue that nobody reads changelogs. I read them religiously for software I'm passionate about as a user, and when I solo'd a product for a decade I was regularly surprised how familiar some of my customers were with mine (most often when they had dedicated IT resources or were similarly small boutique outfits themselves). I've also managed large, custom enterprise projects where subject…

I've started collecting screenshots of app updates that are simply "bug fixes and performance improvements" because it's such a joke at this point. What bugs? How much performance improvement? Did you also nuke one of my favorite features while you were at it, or require other actions of me that I wasn't intending to perform? Who knows? Guess I'll roll the dice once again...

From my experience, it's probably tens of bugs where each of them happened to less than 0.01% of customers, and requires a overly detailed explanation for anyone who didn't have first-hand experience with it.