Comments on: Does Your Application Already Do What You Want?

By: Todd Sieling

Todd Sieling — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:36:06 +0000

While there’s some learning to be expected with a given application, if many people say that they’re missing a feature because they’re not seeing it, then it’s bad design. Interfaces have to disclose their features as much as they need to hide complexity and provide a clear sense of what’s going on. If anything, the survey shows that 37Signals might want to look at how the Backpack interface is letting people know what’s possible, and when.

By: zImage

zImage — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:42:26 +0000

Most of the users won’t bother with reading manuals. Period. So designers should look for ways to overcome this problem. Your article reminded me about this funny error message by Alan Cooper:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-oo-design2/error.gif

I’m not implying anything about particular software products with this comment though :-)

By: DKebb

DKebb — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:43:52 +0000

Rubbish, 37 signals just does not respond to continual customer requests.

Read the comments to the BP article and you can read the MANY detailed rebuttals. BP does not repeat does not provide many of these features.

Many technnical people who run the service on behalf of others are continually frustrated by the snails pace with which 37 Signals adresses issues. We are also frustrated with the smoke and mirrors they use to avoid getting down to some simple work on integration and usability.

Most of the requested features are easily accomplished in drupal, WP and joomla. This is the most viable alternative for a flexible and responsive intranet.

If 37 signals won’t do the work they are paid for then we just have to do it ourselves. Elsewhere.

By: It just might « Steve Birney

It just might « Steve Birney — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:42:23 +0000

[...] It just might Jump to Comments Over on Web Worker Daily, they ask an important question to software users and developers: “Does Your Application Already Do What You Want?“ [...]

By: John Welsh

John Welsh — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:38:20 +0000

I have tried to assess which is the best companies out there for help -from those that answer emails almost immediately to those that provide no response whatsoever. The list did little to resolve my immediate problems but it made me feel a whole lot better!

By: Susie

Susie — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:05:05 +0000

This is a great article, but I’d also love to see one from another point of view – namely, what can developers do to ensure that users are easily able to learn about the different features of the application? i.e. Most people don’t bother reading the user manual, so what can we do as developers to ensure we maximise the usage of the features in the system, thereby also making sure the client knows how fantastic our product is?