I really enjoyed the following post from a blog with the distinctive title, Where Rasta Meets Pasta: “The Importance of Being Earnest about Usability.”
The author, Dara, makes some great observations about software, and I think she’s right on.
- Feature mania: the excitement that drives some customers, end users, and developers to dream of possibilities of functionality with no end in sight. Instead, it’s always critical to return to the questions: what do we really need this product to do? How do people actually use it? What benefits are we providing now, and how do we expand those benefits in a realistic way?
- Feature Rich = Poor Adoption. Just to see this formula in print does my heart good. The goal it seems to me is how to balance simplicity and ease of use with critical benefits for administrative users. I don’t know if this balance is ever reached, but it’s certainly worth striving for.
