2 ms·

The problem isn't that you have a feature used by 1% of the population. It's that you have like 60 features each used by 1% of the population, but with not much

by HWR_14 4y ago

The problem isn't that you have a feature used by 1% of the population. It's that you have like 60 features each used by 1% of the population, but with not much overlap. So all the 1% features get axed and suddenly you have only 50% of the users.

TJSomething 4y ago
If you axe 60 features and there are 20 features left that are used by that 50 percent, then that might be a legitimate tradeoff from a business perspective.
anonymousab 4y ago
Ah yes, the Firefox effect.
gcatalfamo 4y ago
As I said that is a "piece of information", not the whole story. Making an axing decision with ONLY that information would be outright idiotic.
slackdog 4y ago
> So all the 1% features get axed and suddenly you have only 50% of the users. In practice things rarely get that far, thanks mostly due to the complete farce that is "data driven design". Such an approach to design would naturally lead to the axing of every unpopular feature if it were followed mechanistically, but in reality "data driven design" actually refers to the practice of mining to support whatever you (the designer/programmer/manager/etc) have already decided to do, and the data is ignored for anything else. It actually works like this: I form a subjective judgement against some feature which I dislike (maybe because it's a pain to maintain or just because it doesn't suit my preferences for any reason.) Then, I look in the telemetry and start making charts of things until I can find some combination of the data that seems to support my prejudice against the feature. I bury all the presentations of the data which failed to support or even refuted me, I pretend I never saw them. Then I write up my report claiming that the feature should be removed for objective scientific reasons, and my fancy charts and graphs prove it! It's totally not just my subjective prejudices driving the design, no Siree... Besides the privacy/consent concerns, this is why telemetry is bad for users. It devalues dialogue between the users and developers and replaces it with pseudo-scientific arguments based on nothing but the developer's preferences. That's what it's really for, an excuse to never talk with the users.

by HWR_14 4y ago

TJSomething 4y ago

If you axe 60 features and there are 20 features left that are used by that 50 percent, then that might be a legitimate tradeoff from a business perspective.

anonymousab 4y ago

Ah yes, the Firefox effect.

gcatalfamo 4y ago

As I said that is a "piece of information", not the whole story. Making an axing decision with ONLY that information would be outright idiotic.

slackdog 4y ago

> So all the 1% features get axed and suddenly you have only 50% of the users. In practice things rarely get that far, thanks mostly due to the complete farce that is "data driven design". Such an approach to design would naturally lead to the axing of every unpopular feature if it were followed mechanistically, but in reality "data driven design" actually refers to the practice of mining to support whatever you (the designer/programmer/manager/etc) have already decided to do, and the data is ignored for anything else. It actually works like this: I form a subjective judgement against some feature which I dislike (maybe because it's a pain to maintain or just because it doesn't suit my preferences for any reason.) Then, I look in the telemetry and start making charts of things until I can find some combination of the data that seems to support my prejudice against the feature. I bury all the presentations of the data which failed to support or even refuted me, I pretend I never saw them. Then I write up my report claiming that the feature should be removed for objective scientific reasons, and my fancy charts and graphs prove it! It's totally not just my subjective prejudices driving the design, no Siree... Besides the privacy/consent concerns, this is why telemetry is bad for users. It devalues dialogue between the users and developers and replaces it with pseudo-scientific arguments based on nothing but the developer's preferences. That's what it's really for, an excuse to never talk with the users.