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I would never agree with this statement of the author: "You won’t stop until everybody is using your app." Why ? All the apps I ever build (or participate in th

I would never agree with this statement of the author: "You won’t stop until everybody is using your app." Why ? All the apps I ever build (or participate in their development) where targeted to the fit the most, without sacrificing the business requirements or other important/critical aspects of the app. Otherwise will end-up with an unusable product.

jakey_bakey 3y ago
That’s fair; I might have been a little gung-ho with this introductory flavour text
- huqedato 3y ago
  Moreover, the target "audience" of an app is always specified before the design phase, in the Business Requirements Document and such and it's a defining element for the development. I've read/wrote hundreds of such documents in my career, yet I've never seen one that sets its target audience as 'everybody'.
  - bhaney 3y ago
    > the target "audience" of an app is always specified before the design phase, in the Business Requirements Document I could feel my soul leaving my body while reading this
    - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
      TBF, if you don't understand the people that you're writing your app for, you're probably not going to be very successful.
  - lelandfe 3y ago
    You're needlessly rebutting a jokey introduction to an article. I'd also wager few apps have everyone in the world as active users, which is the next sentence in the article.
  - jakey_bakey 3y ago
    If your startup has a Business Requirements Document, you launched too late
    - justinclift 3y ago
      Or it's founders have been working at IBM a bit too much... ;)
    - DANmode 3y ago
      Or you're not consumer-facing?
- zymhan 3y ago
  I think your post has personality, as it is written. Just my unsolicited, non-expert advice: don't make your writing more generic just to appeal to a wider audience.
  - financypants 3y ago
    You won't stop until everybody is reading your blog
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - jakey_bakey 3y ago
      HAHAHAHAHA, nice one
  - jakey_bakey 3y ago
    Totally agree, I intend to keep writing as my hobby so definitely wouldn't want to take the fun out of it by removing my own voice!
curtisblaine 3y ago
I guess if you're growing for the sake of growth you would do exactly that: not stop until everybody is using your app, because # of users (or rather, delta-# of users) is the most important metric. I agree it's a terrible metric, but isn't it the only VC-money-fuelled metric that counts in many cases (at least nowadays?)
xyst 3y ago
It’s part of founders pitch repertoire to dumb VCs. Sadly it’s made its way into mainstream content
coolliquidcode 3y ago
You should see how ADA requirements are practically impossible or completely break design. The high contrast of font to background requirement is so extreme that most major sites and even ADA related sites fail. Things like alt text is so time consuming it would be incredibly expensive to label all the images. Facebook has long resorted to using AI descriptions. Really it shouldn't be up to the developer it should be up to the disabled person to buy tools. Just like someone may need to buy a wheelchair to move around, they should have to buy a specialty browser that handles their limited visibility needs or brail tool interface.
- pcl 3y ago
  > “Really it shouldn't be up to the developer it should be up to the disabled person to buy tools. Just like someone may need to buy a wheelchair to move around, they should have to buy a specialty browser that handles their limited visibility needs or brail tool interface.” No, that’s the wrong analogy. The ADA is there to ensure that people with wheelchairs can find a barrier-free entrance to a building, and a curb cut at an intersection. It should be on us, the developers, to ensure our apps work with the tools of the trade to enable people with limitations. So, our apps should be usable by screen readers. The screen reader is the analogue to the wheelchair here. This is one of the great things about HTML. Even ignorant / lazy / time-constrained developers are likely to output something that sorta works, just since they’re using divs and imgs and whatnot. And the bar is so low! Adding accessibility labels takes not much effort at all. And, as an added bonus, accessible apps are easier to test, since testing frameworks like Playwright can hook into accessibility info directly to validate assertions.
  - coolliquidcode 3y ago
    > find a barrier-free entrance to a building, and a curb cut at an intersection I disagree with this too. It's a social nicety but shouldn't be a requirement. > It should be on us, the developers, to ensure our apps work with the tools of the trade to enable people with limitations Why? I argue it should be on the disabled person. > The bar is so low. Not really. There are groups of lowers running around looking for people to shake down for ADA misses. To really protect yourself it takes a lot of time.
madeofpalk 3y ago
I don't know - I'm always amused at how companies will try all sorts of growth hacks to eke out an extra 1% of DAU or whatever, but won't prioritise building products for human beings.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Companies do all sorts of (IMO insane) things to their apps that reduce their reach. Ignoring accessibility is just one of them. I remember when I was in the app-writing business, and our devs would be constantly trying to bump up the minimum OS version supported. “See here, it says that only 10% of customer devices are on OS version 10.1 and below. We must bump our minimum version to 10.2 because us developers are tired of supporting this old shit and legacy code paths!” This seems to me to be a lot like a salesman simply hanging up on 1 out of 10 of their potential customers. Makes no sense to me, but the version bumpers seem to be winning. The number of apps that no longer support my iPhone 7 is growing and growing…
  - swsieber 3y ago
    I suspect that stuff like accessibility and minimum OS version are not independent of the profitability of a customer, so it's not necessarily insane. For example, I'd suspect that people who stay on old iPhone's are less likely to spend money on apps. But it's a small, very unfounded suspicion. I'd be curious to see if anything works out though in how stuff like that lines up.
    - yurishimo 3y ago
      I'd imagine this is likely true. The other thing to consider, is that apps don't necessarily need to be updated. Many can continue to work on old versions forever if the developer takes care with planning. I'm thinking specifically of a 3rd party camera app, or maybe one of these modern 3D mapping apps that uses LIDAR to model a room. These apps can (and should!) continue to work on the hardware they were developed for, even if the author bumps the minimum version past what is supported. If the app author builds in reliances on a web api that expects an up-to-date companion app, that was/is shortsighted and should be discouraged.
zymhan 3y ago
I think you're being too harsh, it's simply a form of rhetoric. Surely you could've shared your take on the actual substance of the post?
alsetmusic 3y ago
It’s clearly a cheeky comment to give a sense of levity to the presentation.

jakey_bakey 3y ago

That’s fair; I might have been a little gung-ho with this introductory flavour text

huqedato 3y ago
Moreover, the target "audience" of an app is always specified before the design phase, in the Business Requirements Document and such and it's a defining element for the development. I've read/wrote hundreds of such documents in my career, yet I've never seen one that sets its target audience as 'everybody'.
- bhaney 3y ago
  > the target "audience" of an app is always specified before the design phase, in the Business Requirements Document I could feel my soul leaving my body while reading this
  - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
    TBF, if you don't understand the people that you're writing your app for, you're probably not going to be very successful.
- lelandfe 3y ago
  You're needlessly rebutting a jokey introduction to an article. I'd also wager few apps have everyone in the world as active users, which is the next sentence in the article.
- jakey_bakey 3y ago
  If your startup has a Business Requirements Document, you launched too late
  - justinclift 3y ago
    Or it's founders have been working at IBM a bit too much... ;)
  - DANmode 3y ago
    Or you're not consumer-facing?
zymhan 3y ago
I think your post has personality, as it is written. Just my unsolicited, non-expert advice: don't make your writing more generic just to appeal to a wider audience.
- financypants 3y ago
  You won't stop until everybody is reading your blog
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - jakey_bakey 3y ago
    HAHAHAHAHA, nice one
- jakey_bakey 3y ago
  Totally agree, I intend to keep writing as my hobby so definitely wouldn't want to take the fun out of it by removing my own voice!

curtisblaine 3y ago

I guess if you're growing for the sake of growth you would do exactly that: not stop until everybody is using your app, because # of users (or rather, delta-# of users) is the most important metric. I agree it's a terrible metric, but isn't it the only VC-money-fuelled metric that counts in many cases (at least nowadays?)

xyst 3y ago

It’s part of founders pitch repertoire to dumb VCs. Sadly it’s made its way into mainstream content

coolliquidcode 3y ago

You should see how ADA requirements are practically impossible or completely break design. The high contrast of font to background requirement is so extreme that most major sites and even ADA related sites fail. Things like alt text is so time consuming it would be incredibly expensive to label all the images. Facebook has long resorted to using AI descriptions. Really it shouldn't be up to the developer it should be up to the disabled person to buy tools. Just like someone may need to buy a wheelchair to move around, they should have to buy a specialty browser that handles their limited visibility needs or brail tool interface.

pcl 3y ago
> “Really it shouldn't be up to the developer it should be up to the disabled person to buy tools. Just like someone may need to buy a wheelchair to move around, they should have to buy a specialty browser that handles their limited visibility needs or brail tool interface.” No, that’s the wrong analogy. The ADA is there to ensure that people with wheelchairs can find a barrier-free entrance to a building, and a curb cut at an intersection. It should be on us, the developers, to ensure our apps work with the tools of the trade to enable people with limitations. So, our apps should be usable by screen readers. The screen reader is the analogue to the wheelchair here. This is one of the great things about HTML. Even ignorant / lazy / time-constrained developers are likely to output something that sorta works, just since they’re using divs and imgs and whatnot. And the bar is so low! Adding accessibility labels takes not much effort at all. And, as an added bonus, accessible apps are easier to test, since testing frameworks like Playwright can hook into accessibility info directly to validate assertions.
- coolliquidcode 3y ago
  > find a barrier-free entrance to a building, and a curb cut at an intersection I disagree with this too. It's a social nicety but shouldn't be a requirement. > It should be on us, the developers, to ensure our apps work with the tools of the trade to enable people with limitations Why? I argue it should be on the disabled person. > The bar is so low. Not really. There are groups of lowers running around looking for people to shake down for ADA misses. To really protect yourself it takes a lot of time.

madeofpalk 3y ago

I don't know - I'm always amused at how companies will try all sorts of growth hacks to eke out an extra 1% of DAU or whatever, but won't prioritise building products for human beings.

ryandrake 3y ago
Companies do all sorts of (IMO insane) things to their apps that reduce their reach. Ignoring accessibility is just one of them. I remember when I was in the app-writing business, and our devs would be constantly trying to bump up the minimum OS version supported. “See here, it says that only 10% of customer devices are on OS version 10.1 and below. We must bump our minimum version to 10.2 because us developers are tired of supporting this old shit and legacy code paths!” This seems to me to be a lot like a salesman simply hanging up on 1 out of 10 of their potential customers. Makes no sense to me, but the version bumpers seem to be winning. The number of apps that no longer support my iPhone 7 is growing and growing…
- swsieber 3y ago
  I suspect that stuff like accessibility and minimum OS version are not independent of the profitability of a customer, so it's not necessarily insane. For example, I'd suspect that people who stay on old iPhone's are less likely to spend money on apps. But it's a small, very unfounded suspicion. I'd be curious to see if anything works out though in how stuff like that lines up.
  - yurishimo 3y ago
    I'd imagine this is likely true. The other thing to consider, is that apps don't necessarily need to be updated. Many can continue to work on old versions forever if the developer takes care with planning. I'm thinking specifically of a 3rd party camera app, or maybe one of these modern 3D mapping apps that uses LIDAR to model a room. These apps can (and should!) continue to work on the hardware they were developed for, even if the author bumps the minimum version past what is supported. If the app author builds in reliances on a web api that expects an up-to-date companion app, that was/is shortsighted and should be discouraged.

zymhan 3y ago

I think you're being too harsh, it's simply a form of rhetoric. Surely you could've shared your take on the actual substance of the post?

alsetmusic 3y ago

It’s clearly a cheeky comment to give a sense of levity to the presentation.