Make Users Happy (Not Managers)

Found this today

Groupware Bad from here (Google, Pandas, and Lobsters)

Now the problem here is that the product’s direction changed utterly. Our focus in the client group had always been to build products and features that people wanted to use. That we wanted to use. That our moms wanted to use.

“Groupware” is all about things like “workflow”, which means, “the chairman of the committee has emailed me this checklist, and I’m done with item 3, so I want to check off item 3, so this document must be sent back to my supervisor to approve the fact that item 3 is changing from unchecked' to checked’, and once he does that, it can be directed back to committee for review.”

… If you want to do something that’s going to change the world, build software that people want to use instead of software that managers want to buy.

….make it trivially easy for someone to….

Good point, too often overlooked.