Merholz writes a good reminder in Experience IS the Product… and the only thing users care about.
Building a product or a feature that works is only half the problem, and probably a lot less of the problem at that. How do people find get it? How do they learn how to use it? When do they use it? How do they fix it if it breaks? How do they pay for it? What happens if they don’t use it?
Do they even *like* using it?
Esther Derby has some advice about site (or application) navigation:
“Design global navigation last. Before designing global navigation, design screens with only local navigation–how people do the work of that screen. Then, as parts of the system are ready to release, create an application map that shows hub and spoke relationships, selection screens, modal screens and links and build just enough global navigation for the current feature set.”
I like the idea. Seems like it would generate more a more natural organization in the tool instead of a lot of artificial constructs used to categorize and sort the functionality ahead of time.
Marco considers input from his users but ultimately says:
“If I let users steer product decisions, the result would be a massive codebase producing a bloated, cluttered product full of features that hardly anyone used at the expense of everyday usability and polish on the features that matter. Like Microsoft Word. Or Firefox.
By listening too much to outside suggestions, I’d destroy the very reason why I’m receiving them.”
UseKetchup.com looks like an interesting way to keep and track meeting notes. Love the simplicity of it. More about it here.
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