6 ms·

You can dismiss the "verbal minority", or you could treat them as leading indicators. Personally, I'll err on the side of building something that's up to my sta

by al3x 16y ago

You can dismiss the "verbal minority", or you could treat them as leading indicators. Personally, I'll err on the side of building something that's up to my standards rather than seeing if I can get away with mediocrity. It's entirely possible to focus on both stability and, say, a quality desktop application. If you're under-resourced to accomplish both goals, maybe you didn't plan correctly.

patio11 16y ago
It is also possible that both moving to a native app and achieving five nines of uptime (from four nines) will do less for the business than changing the call to action on the pricing page. Luckily, God gave us AB testing.
- pvg 16y ago
  Not to mention there's often good money to be made at the nine fives level.
- gruseom 16y ago
  How is this an argument against making a native app? Don't you have to make the native app before you can AB test it?
  - patio11 16y ago
    It is an argument about competing priorities when resource constrained: try the cheap stuff prior to dropping six figures of dev time on a feature to rescue business which all available evidence says is one account worth $20 a month. (You could go try to find evidence that users actually want to download native apps. For example, put a download button on your page, then see if anyone clicks it. If nobody does, send me half of your six figure dev budget and you're now strictly better off. It is downright disturbing how many very expensive features fail to change user behavior because business processes optimize for the satisfaction of people other than the people who actually pay money for stuff.)
    - gruseom 16y ago
      I agree with your last sentence, but not the one before it. Alex isn't arguing that users consciously prefer native apps; most don't even know what "native app" means. He's arguing that native apps feel better to users and that this feeling is worth something. How much it's worth is hard to quantify. The test you describe wouldn't answer that. As for this: which all available evidence says is one account worth $20 a month ... surely you haven't reviewed all available evidence on this question? Or did God give it to us when he gave us AB testing? I'm joking, but I think you're trivializing a nontrivial question. I'd like to know how to find "all available evidence"; my experience is that this kind of thing can be very hard to measure. Edit: it's worth remembering that Steve Jobs made almost an identical argument to Alex's in his critique of Flash last year, even emphasizing that it was his most important point: "We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps" (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/). Sub-standard apps are exactly what the OP is about.
deleted 16y ago
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nhangen 16y ago
If it is so easy, and you are unhappy with every available solution, then why not make one of your own?

by al3x 16y ago

patio11 16y ago

It is also possible that both moving to a native app and achieving five nines of uptime (from four nines) will do less for the business than changing the call to action on the pricing page. Luckily, God gave us AB testing.

pvg 16y ago
Not to mention there's often good money to be made at the nine fives level.
gruseom 16y ago
How is this an argument against making a native app? Don't you have to make the native app before you can AB test it?
- patio11 16y ago
  It is an argument about competing priorities when resource constrained: try the cheap stuff prior to dropping six figures of dev time on a feature to rescue business which all available evidence says is one account worth $20 a month. (You could go try to find evidence that users actually want to download native apps. For example, put a download button on your page, then see if anyone clicks it. If nobody does, send me half of your six figure dev budget and you're now strictly better off. It is downright disturbing how many very expensive features fail to change user behavior because business processes optimize for the satisfaction of people other than the people who actually pay money for stuff.)
  - gruseom 16y ago
    I agree with your last sentence, but not the one before it. Alex isn't arguing that users consciously prefer native apps; most don't even know what "native app" means. He's arguing that native apps feel better to users and that this feeling is worth something. How much it's worth is hard to quantify. The test you describe wouldn't answer that. As for this: which all available evidence says is one account worth $20 a month ... surely you haven't reviewed all available evidence on this question? Or did God give it to us when he gave us AB testing? I'm joking, but I think you're trivializing a nontrivial question. I'd like to know how to find "all available evidence"; my experience is that this kind of thing can be very hard to measure. Edit: it's worth remembering that Steve Jobs made almost an identical argument to Alex's in his critique of Flash last year, even emphasizing that it was his most important point: "We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps" (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/). Sub-standard apps are exactly what the OP is about.

deleted 16y ago

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nhangen 16y ago

If it is so easy, and you are unhappy with every available solution, then why not make one of your own?