4 ms·

If you look at how things have progressed from the GUI desktop->web->mobile you get a reasonably good flavor of the trade-offs that have been, and continue to b

by blihp 7y ago

If you look at how things have progressed from the GUI desktop->web->mobile you get a reasonably good flavor of the trade-offs that have been, and continue to be, made. Compare the richest, most powerful spreadsheet application you can find on the desktop to the same on the web to the same on mobile... there you go ;-) (and it isn't just the relative maturity of the platforms: once one player dominates a platform, things start to stagnate) If history is any guide, the mobile spreadsheet will never do some (probably much) of what the desktop version did[1] and the desktop version will never get some of the new capabilities of the mobile version[2]... yet over time the less capable, but 'better', mobile app will become the new normal for many. The good news is the mobile version will still be more powerful than whatever platform comes next. I'm greatly over-simplifying and glossing over some things (esp. re: the dynamics of the text UI and early GUI eras) but I think the basic idea still holds. [1] It's 'good enough' for the majority of use cases. Some would argue that the lost features were cruft anyway. Which is fine unless you needed that cruft... [2] The profit motive is no longer strong enough to warrant the needed investment in structural changes to the desktop application

TeMPOraL 7y ago
> [1] It's 'good enough' for the majority of use cases. Some would argue that the lost features were cruft anyway. Which is fine unless you needed that cruft... I don't like that "good enough" argument, because it misses the fact that features shape use patterns. Features are enablers. To give a random example: I once visited my wife's office, and was given a task I could help them with while waiting. It was a task they did very frequently, and it boiled down to specifying a search query, and then adjusting some data in each of the result. They thought it'll keep me occupied for an hour or two, manually adjusting each of the hundreds of results, but I looked around the software and found a way to do a bulk update hidden somewhere in the UI, and was done in 3 minutes. I taught the people in that office the trick and they were grateful, but it made me wonder - what if one day the software vendor removes bulk update switch because it's rarely used? It's only rarely used because it's not easily discoverable (but the telemetry will not tell you that). Wondering even further - how much money and opportunity to growth do companies lose on office tasks that are inefficient only because software was developed for the lowest common denominator, and offers no advanced features and no path to mastery?
- blihp 7y ago
  Agreed and you give a perfect example of the type of feature that is often the first to go.

by blihp 7y ago

TeMPOraL 7y ago

> [1] It's 'good enough' for the majority of use cases. Some would argue that the lost features were cruft anyway. Which is fine unless you needed that cruft... I don't like that "good enough" argument, because it misses the fact that features shape use patterns. Features are enablers. To give a random example: I once visited my wife's office, and was given a task I could help them with while waiting. It was a task they did very frequently, and it boiled down to specifying a search query, and then adjusting some data in each of the result. They thought it'll keep me occupied for an hour or two, manually adjusting each of the hundreds of results, but I looked around the software and found a way to do a bulk update hidden somewhere in the UI, and was done in 3 minutes. I taught the people in that office the trick and they were grateful, but it made me wonder - what if one day the software vendor removes bulk update switch because it's rarely used? It's only rarely used because it's not easily discoverable (but the telemetry will not tell you that). Wondering even further - how much money and opportunity to growth do companies lose on office tasks that are inefficient only because software was developed for the lowest common denominator, and offers no advanced features and no path to mastery?

blihp 7y ago
Agreed and you give a perfect example of the type of feature that is often the first to go.