DISQUS

Melanie Baker · 1 year ago

Amen! It's a bit of a Murphy's Law in product development that it seems like if you design products with the traditional "user is the end consideration" approach, the stuff you spend the most blood, sweat, and tears getting "right" will be the stuff the users utterly ignore or passionately hate. And the stuff you despise and cringe at incorporating will be their unanimous favourite. :)

James Storm · 1 year ago

I don't think you can talk about this topic too much. The performance of your database queries or the elegance of your architecture are worthless if users don't like, or want to use, the product.

Of course, there are exceptions. Consider this: if the UI and UX are such important success factors, then why don't more people use a Mac? More is going on here methinks.

Pete · 1 year ago

Mac market share is closing in on 8%. I think the lesson here is that, as you pointed out, there are other things going on here but more importantly people are not always rational and the User Experience is not limited to the product itself but is affected by anything that relates to the product which can sometimes be out of your control.

It will be interesting to revisit this post in 2 years to see how things have shaken out...I have a feeling that the Mac market share will have grown considerably (in North America) by then since many of the factors I pointed out above are becoming less of an argument everyday.

Paul Marshall · 1 year ago

[...]Peter over at Tech Capital Partners in KW has a good post on the topic where he articulates thoughts on "The experience IS the product" and the importance of establishing and maintaining a superior user interface.[...]