Product - Customers, paving bare spots
Blog on design
https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/the-road-most-traveled-by/
Design
https://www.jnd.org/books/design-of-everyday-things-revised.html
Fast prototyping with TestFlight
This is a great discussion on the challenges of designing UI for complex applications. In the aggregate, what ends up being most effective for me, is rapid prototyping, and “paving the bare spots.”[0]
I find that I do a terrible job of predicting user mental models.
The rub with prototypes, is that they can’t be lash-ups, as they inevitably end up as ship code. This means that a lot of good code will get binned. It just needs to be accepted and anticipated. Sometimes, I can create a standalone project for code that needs to go, but I still feel has a future.
So there’s always a need for fundamental high quality.
What has been useful to me, is Apple’s TestFlight[1]. I write Apple software, and TestFlight is their beta distribution system.
I start a project at a very nascent stage, and use TestFlight to prototype it. I use an “always beta” quality approach, so the app is constantly at ship quality; although incomplete.
It forces me to maintain high quality, and allows all stakeholders to participate, even at very early stages. It’s extremely motivating. The level of enthusiasm is off the charts. In fact, the biggest challenge is keeping people in low orbit, so they don’t start thinking that you are a “WIZZARD” [sic].
It also makes shopping around for funding and support easy. You just loop people into the TestFlight group. Since the app is already at high quality, there’s no need for chaperones or sacrifices to The Demo Gods.
I like that it keeps development totally focused on the actual user experience. They look at the application entirely differently from me.
[0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/the-road-most-travel…