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I wouldn’t say you have to cater to middle management instead of the end user. You just can if you want to. Of course you need to consider what middle managemen

I wouldn’t say you have to cater to middle management instead of the end user. You just can if you want to. Of course you need to consider what middle management needs, since they’re paying you, but there is usually room for craftsmanship to bring a truly great UX to the end user. Most software engineers are lazy and lack a true sense of craft, so they usually skip building a great UX when it’s not a requirement.

bearjaws 3y ago
In enterprise software, you cater exclusively to management, they will turn a blind eye to 99% of issues as long as the team is able to get the work done. Take one look at EMRs and realize that its sold / marketed to .01% of the hospital, despite 80% of the health system using it.
- 4death4 3y ago
  > In enterprise software, you cater exclusively to management, they will turn a blind eye to 99% of issues as long as the team is able to get the work done. Again, you can exclusively cater to management, but you don’t have to. Look at Datadog. It’s a great product, but still ultimately purchased by management.
  - redkoala 3y ago
    Some organizations listen to their engineers/users too in the buy decision. Effective products do both - cater to management checklists, and cater to end user experiences.
  - kindkid 3y ago
    Also, look at their competition. New Relic's product is so painful and broken that despite successfully winning deals with many large companies, they still manage to lose business to Datadog as their end users work extremely hard to convince management to not renew, and switch to Datadog, for the good of the company. Ask any insider.
- sophacles 3y ago
  Catering to a mixture of management and users helps sales. Having a product that users (reports) love will get your product to have internal advocates. Some managers are self centered jerks, but most will at least consider their reports advocacy if the product also has the features they need.
sumtechguy 3y ago
> so they usually skip building a great UX when it’s not a requirement or worse think they are good at it. Then guard that GUI like it is their first born.
JohnFen 3y ago
> Most software engineers are lazy and lack a true sense of craft, so they usually skip building a great UX when it’s not a requirement. From my observations, it's usually not that devs are lazy or lack a sense of craft, it's that their employers are not willing to spend money building something that isn't actually a requirement.
- 4death4 3y ago
  That doesn’t explain why the functionality that is there is usually buggy and lackluster.
  - harimau777 3y ago
    Because being bug free and lustrous isn't something that people are willing to pay for.
  - heddhunter 3y ago
    the explanation is simple - the immutable law of resource allocation: "good, fast, cheap: pick two"

bearjaws 3y ago

In enterprise software, you cater exclusively to management, they will turn a blind eye to 99% of issues as long as the team is able to get the work done. Take one look at EMRs and realize that its sold / marketed to .01% of the hospital, despite 80% of the health system using it.

4death4 3y ago
> In enterprise software, you cater exclusively to management, they will turn a blind eye to 99% of issues as long as the team is able to get the work done. Again, you can exclusively cater to management, but you don’t have to. Look at Datadog. It’s a great product, but still ultimately purchased by management.
- redkoala 3y ago
  Some organizations listen to their engineers/users too in the buy decision. Effective products do both - cater to management checklists, and cater to end user experiences.
- kindkid 3y ago
  Also, look at their competition. New Relic's product is so painful and broken that despite successfully winning deals with many large companies, they still manage to lose business to Datadog as their end users work extremely hard to convince management to not renew, and switch to Datadog, for the good of the company. Ask any insider.
sophacles 3y ago
Catering to a mixture of management and users helps sales. Having a product that users (reports) love will get your product to have internal advocates. Some managers are self centered jerks, but most will at least consider their reports advocacy if the product also has the features they need.

sumtechguy 3y ago

> so they usually skip building a great UX when it’s not a requirement or worse think they are good at it. Then guard that GUI like it is their first born.

JohnFen 3y ago

> Most software engineers are lazy and lack a true sense of craft, so they usually skip building a great UX when it’s not a requirement. From my observations, it's usually not that devs are lazy or lack a sense of craft, it's that their employers are not willing to spend money building something that isn't actually a requirement.

4death4 3y ago
That doesn’t explain why the functionality that is there is usually buggy and lackluster.
- harimau777 3y ago
  Because being bug free and lustrous isn't something that people are willing to pay for.
- heddhunter 3y ago
  the explanation is simple - the immutable law of resource allocation: "good, fast, cheap: pick two"