4 ms·

Don't build Swiss Army Knives - Find features that add value

50 points by destraynor 15y ago

arethuza 15y ago
A classic from Joel: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html
T_S_ 15y ago
Truly useful features require truly useful data to support them. Many devs are incredibly creative at using the data at hand in innovative and even beautiful ways. The Swiss Army knife syndrome, which I have seen in shopping apps, comes from moving into area features where the data is relatively easy to get, but the usefulness to the shopper is dubious. So, in some cases, the syndrome's cure will be found in finding ways to collect, measure or count something new before adding another widget to the screen.
darkdiver 15y ago
Good points in there - made me wonder how many times is your diagram revisited by a web app's maintenance crew? Probably never. Leading to the question: over how long will app maintenance melt your crisp, clean app into a fudgepile of useless utility?
krmmalik 15y ago
I wrote a blog post about not building Swiss Army Knives a little while back myself. What i like about your approach is that you gave actual practical advice on how product focus should be achieved, whereas my post was more philosophical in nature.
- destraynor 15y ago
  By all means throw in a link :)
  - krmmalik 15y ago
    Sure ;-) I'd love to hear your thoughts on it because product development as a concept is something that has only recently come onto my radar and im constantly thinking about how to improve on it as a discipline. Here was the first part: http://krmmalik.posterous.com/the-anti-swiss-army-knife http://krmmalik.posterous.com/the-anti-swiss-army-knife and here the second: http://krmmalik.posterous.com/the-anti-swiss-army-knife-part-ii http://krmmalik.posterous.com/the-anti-swiss-army-knife-part... You'll notice an evolution in my thought process from the first to the second. Enjoy ;-)
cmhamill 15y ago
I understand the point behind this entirely. The Swiss Army Knife metaphor, however, is, in fact, a bad one, thought it seems all right initially. The key bit is this: "By combining many products of low utility, it [the knife] becomes a product of some utility." False. The basic 440 stainless blade is of immense utility. So much so that many, myself included, choose to carry a pocket knife that contains nothing but a single blade. The Swiss Army knife sacrifices a small amount of the utility of a good blade (by making it slightly smaller and the handle less ergonomic) in exchange for significant additional functionality. Sure, the saw pretty much sucks, and the scissors are of minimal use, and so on. That's not the point, though, at all. It's that a Swiss Army Knife allows you to have those things at all in unexpected situations. It fits in your pocket and can help you build a lean-to significantly faster than with only a blade. The take-away, of course, is that what's important is not the feature list, but the use case(s). Joel Spolsky, via arethuza on this page [1]: "Unfortunately, it's never the same 20%. Everybody uses a different set of features." [2] For those who end up choosing a Swiss Army Knife as their best friend, having all that "bloat" around is precisely the point. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2922104 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2922104 [2] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html
- destraynor 15y ago
  I agree with you, I should have said "high" utility - not "some utility". I'd update the post, only I'm not keen on re-writing history. I think the metaphor is correct in that regard, I'm saying that adding on stuff works for the Swiss Army knife - but maybe not for Your Web App. Thanks for the comment :)
- krmmalik 15y ago
  I think the key thing here is to know which problem is being solved or tackled by the product. For those that require an actual swiss army knife adding more utility for them would be useful, but for other applications it would be bloat.
wes-exp 15y ago
Where does that leave the iPhone, which is basically a digital swiss army knife?
PetoVera_Matt 15y ago
This article simply highlights the endless debate between doing something that's highly focused, vs. something that is more feature rich, less focused, but with broader appeal. Netflix is very focused in utilty, Facebook isn't, but both are large, successful, and growing companies. There isn't one right answer.
revorad 15y ago
James Lindenbaum of Heroku used a similar metaphor to describe their development philosophy in this excellent talk - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BhDLm9jo5Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BhDLm9jo5Y Use a Machete, not a Swiss army knife.
cleaver 15y ago
I was just thinking about this yesterday. I was comparing Dropbox with Box.net. I use Dropbox--it's simple and works well. The website is the same. Then I went to Box.net. The list of features was overwhelming. I was interested in whether they had a Linux client and what Mac OS support was like. I gave up.
aymeric 15y ago
I love this way of prioritizing. At the moment I am looking at "essential features" to do most important task for v1. Then I add another important scenario and I add the related features. What the approach given in the article teaches me is: what features should I really pay attention to. How can I improve the top right corner rather than adding a top left corner feature? This insight, although obvious to many, was what I got out of the article. I am going to list the most used features and make them great. Thanks.
- aymeric 15y ago
  Now that I think about it, using your method, User Registration shouldn't get much love because it isused only once and would end up in the bottom right. The chart needs the "essential" aspect of a feature or business value?
  - destraynor 15y ago
    Well, it's "All of the Users" so it should get plenty of love. But I wouldn't really describe User Registration as part of an app personally. I was shooting for "all of the features inside the app" here. You have a marketing website whose purpose is to attract people, help them create accounts and on board them successfully. I'd regard that as a separate project and do one of these out again. You'll find it scores highly there.

50 points by destraynor 15y ago

A classic from Joel: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html

T_S_ 15y ago

Truly useful features require truly useful data to support them. Many devs are incredibly creative at using the data at hand in innovative and even beautiful ways. The Swiss Army knife syndrome, which I have seen in shopping apps, comes from moving into area features where the data is relatively easy to get, but the usefulness to the shopper is dubious. So, in some cases, the syndrome's cure will be found in finding ways to collect, measure or count something new before adding another widget to the screen.

darkdiver 15y ago

Good points in there - made me wonder how many times is your diagram revisited by a web app's maintenance crew? Probably never. Leading to the question: over how long will app maintenance melt your crisp, clean app into a fudgepile of useless utility?

krmmalik 15y ago

I wrote a blog post about not building Swiss Army Knives a little while back myself. What i like about your approach is that you gave actual practical advice on how product focus should be achieved, whereas my post was more philosophical in nature.

destraynor 15y ago
By all means throw in a link :)
- krmmalik 15y ago
  Sure ;-) I'd love to hear your thoughts on it because product development as a concept is something that has only recently come onto my radar and im constantly thinking about how to improve on it as a discipline. Here was the first part: http://krmmalik.posterous.com/the-anti-swiss-army-knife http://krmmalik.posterous.com/the-anti-swiss-army-knife and here the second: http://krmmalik.posterous.com/the-anti-swiss-army-knife-part-ii http://krmmalik.posterous.com/the-anti-swiss-army-knife-part... You'll notice an evolution in my thought process from the first to the second. Enjoy ;-)

cmhamill 15y ago

I understand the point behind this entirely. The Swiss Army Knife metaphor, however, is, in fact, a bad one, thought it seems all right initially. The key bit is this: "By combining many products of low utility, it [the knife] becomes a product of some utility." False. The basic 440 stainless blade is of immense utility. So much so that many, myself included, choose to carry a pocket knife that contains nothing but a single blade. The Swiss Army knife sacrifices a small amount of the utility of a good blade (by making it slightly smaller and the handle less ergonomic) in exchange for significant additional functionality. Sure, the saw pretty much sucks, and the scissors are of minimal use, and so on. That's not the point, though, at all. It's that a Swiss Army Knife allows you to have those things at all in unexpected situations. It fits in your pocket and can help you build a lean-to significantly faster than with only a blade. The take-away, of course, is that what's important is not the feature list, but the use case(s). Joel Spolsky, via arethuza on this page [1]: "Unfortunately, it's never the same 20%. Everybody uses a different set of features." [2] For those who end up choosing a Swiss Army Knife as their best friend, having all that "bloat" around is precisely the point. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2922104 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2922104 [2] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html

destraynor 15y ago
I agree with you, I should have said "high" utility - not "some utility". I'd update the post, only I'm not keen on re-writing history. I think the metaphor is correct in that regard, I'm saying that adding on stuff works for the Swiss Army knife - but maybe not for Your Web App. Thanks for the comment :)
krmmalik 15y ago
I think the key thing here is to know which problem is being solved or tackled by the product. For those that require an actual swiss army knife adding more utility for them would be useful, but for other applications it would be bloat.

wes-exp 15y ago

Where does that leave the iPhone, which is basically a digital swiss army knife?

PetoVera_Matt 15y ago

This article simply highlights the endless debate between doing something that's highly focused, vs. something that is more feature rich, less focused, but with broader appeal. Netflix is very focused in utilty, Facebook isn't, but both are large, successful, and growing companies. There isn't one right answer.

revorad 15y ago

James Lindenbaum of Heroku used a similar metaphor to describe their development philosophy in this excellent talk - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BhDLm9jo5Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BhDLm9jo5Y Use a Machete, not a Swiss army knife.

cleaver 15y ago

I was just thinking about this yesterday. I was comparing Dropbox with Box.net. I use Dropbox--it's simple and works well. The website is the same. Then I went to Box.net. The list of features was overwhelming. I was interested in whether they had a Linux client and what Mac OS support was like. I gave up.

aymeric 15y ago

I love this way of prioritizing. At the moment I am looking at "essential features" to do most important task for v1. Then I add another important scenario and I add the related features. What the approach given in the article teaches me is: what features should I really pay attention to. How can I improve the top right corner rather than adding a top left corner feature? This insight, although obvious to many, was what I got out of the article. I am going to list the most used features and make them great. Thanks.

aymeric 15y ago
Now that I think about it, using your method, User Registration shouldn't get much love because it isused only once and would end up in the bottom right. The chart needs the "essential" aspect of a feature or business value?
- destraynor 15y ago
  Well, it's "All of the Users" so it should get plenty of love. But I wouldn't really describe User Registration as part of an app personally. I was shooting for "all of the features inside the app" here. You have a marketing website whose purpose is to attract people, help them create accounts and on board them successfully. I'd regard that as a separate project and do one of these out again. You'll find it scores highly there.