RE: Consequences of designing software

Last Update: 29.11.2018. By Jens in Newsletter

When I think about those consequences, I always come back to one question:

Should an app bend to the will of the user or should the user bend to the will of the app?

It’s an interesting question. Yet not one with a simple black and white answer.

It depends on a lot of factors and is not universal. Nonetheless, a dev team should have a process for finding the right answers for their user base and the tasks at hand. An accounting app, for example, has outside constraints aka regulations compliance which overrule certain user wish. Nevertheless, the app should not make the life of the user harder.

To-do lists are a great example too. I never found one app better than pen & paper. The only real drawback of pen & paper is it is not searchable. Yet, any app makes it more complicated with forms, tags, dates, categories, bad UX, etc. Although, its purpose is to make the life of the user easier. Yep, tools should help and make life easier. That’s their purpose.

But how do you get there?

By asking questions and observing the user and processes involved.

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