4 ms·

These sorts of "fun" things are only a good idea if your software is already good. Otherwise they'll just make your users hate your product even more ("what the

These sorts of "fun" things are only a good idea if your software is already good. Otherwise they'll just make your users hate your product even more ("what the hell did you spend your effort on!?")

pplonski86 2y ago
Agree. The software should be good and reliable. Then we can think about small and simple improvements like that. I would say that software should be first smart, then it can be fun.
selcuka 2y ago
True, but at the same time "enterprise software" vendors keep changing their UI icons instead of fixing real, decade old bugs (I'm looking at you, JetBrains). Apparently there is some value in adding such features.
- Hamuko 2y ago
  Product managers aren't seen to be shipping if all that they have to show are bug fixes that the actual engineers did. They need big projects that they can slap their name on.
  - brabel 2y ago
    Also, designers gotta justify their jobs.
- yarekt 2y ago
  Well where do you think all that tech debt that “we’ll pay off later” goes? new icons is the only thing they can ship quickly. In their defence who wants to be the first PO to ship nothing for extended period of time. Long term always takes a back seat to short term, IMO in any company pressure must come from the very top
- zelphirkalt 2y ago
  Atlassian (broken Markdown parsers, incredibly sluggish/laggy UIs, update state issues on page without reload, and countless more) Microsoft Windows (bugs relating to icons "down at the clock" and tooltips of those icons, sound volume management, start menu lag, stupid search in start menu, where when you type 3 letters it finds the thing you search, but when you type 4 letters it is no longer there, worse and worse system settings dialogs, hiding everything behind 3 more dialogs to click, and many more) Salesforce Slack (buggy Markdown parser (what is it with these big companies always getting something like Markdown wrong???), laggy as hell, still no voice chat on FF, ...) All of these big companies make dysfunctional software, that they can only push down our throats, because of uninformed management levels and the sheer size of marketing budgets they spent.
  - doix 2y ago
    I used to work for a small SaaS that _really_ cared about quality/speed/usability. Unfortunately, it doesn't really sell well. People care about features and if you're missing a feature compared to a competitor people won't pick you. Even if the competitors feature is absolute garbage and probably a net-negative because people will try to use something broken, people will still pick it. We probably got a feature complete/working within less than a week then spent months as the CEO (who was a product guy) was nitpicking. We'd routinely throw away features if we felt they didn't fit well. In the end it didn't really matter. I liked the tool and was proud of it, but it in terms of making money, it didn't do well.
- Lanolderen 2y ago
  I wanna hate it but I've done it. It's just tempting to go for the "this looks a bit wonky" or "add CSV import/export to X" ticket instead of the "weird bug, can't reproduce, here are some logs, reassigned 12 times in the past 3 years" ticket.
  - dunham 2y ago
    You're working on bugs? Sounds like there is room in the schedule for another feature.
wink 2y ago
I think in this case it's about a beta of unreleased software (or right about launch), so that doesn't even apply. But I think the main factor is that it's not-business software by a relatively popular (and well-liked) "small" software company.

These sorts of "fun" things are only a good idea if your software is already good. Otherwise they'll just make your users hate your product even more ("what the hell did you spend your effort on!?")

pplonski86 2y ago

Agree. The software should be good and reliable. Then we can think about small and simple improvements like that. I would say that software should be first smart, then it can be fun.

selcuka 2y ago

True, but at the same time "enterprise software" vendors keep changing their UI icons instead of fixing real, decade old bugs (I'm looking at you, JetBrains). Apparently there is some value in adding such features.

Hamuko 2y ago
Product managers aren't seen to be shipping if all that they have to show are bug fixes that the actual engineers did. They need big projects that they can slap their name on.
- brabel 2y ago
  Also, designers gotta justify their jobs.
yarekt 2y ago
Well where do you think all that tech debt that “we’ll pay off later” goes? new icons is the only thing they can ship quickly. In their defence who wants to be the first PO to ship nothing for extended period of time. Long term always takes a back seat to short term, IMO in any company pressure must come from the very top
zelphirkalt 2y ago
Atlassian (broken Markdown parsers, incredibly sluggish/laggy UIs, update state issues on page without reload, and countless more) Microsoft Windows (bugs relating to icons "down at the clock" and tooltips of those icons, sound volume management, start menu lag, stupid search in start menu, where when you type 3 letters it finds the thing you search, but when you type 4 letters it is no longer there, worse and worse system settings dialogs, hiding everything behind 3 more dialogs to click, and many more) Salesforce Slack (buggy Markdown parser (what is it with these big companies always getting something like Markdown wrong???), laggy as hell, still no voice chat on FF, ...) All of these big companies make dysfunctional software, that they can only push down our throats, because of uninformed management levels and the sheer size of marketing budgets they spent.
- doix 2y ago
  I used to work for a small SaaS that _really_ cared about quality/speed/usability. Unfortunately, it doesn't really sell well. People care about features and if you're missing a feature compared to a competitor people won't pick you. Even if the competitors feature is absolute garbage and probably a net-negative because people will try to use something broken, people will still pick it. We probably got a feature complete/working within less than a week then spent months as the CEO (who was a product guy) was nitpicking. We'd routinely throw away features if we felt they didn't fit well. In the end it didn't really matter. I liked the tool and was proud of it, but it in terms of making money, it didn't do well.
Lanolderen 2y ago
I wanna hate it but I've done it. It's just tempting to go for the "this looks a bit wonky" or "add CSV import/export to X" ticket instead of the "weird bug, can't reproduce, here are some logs, reassigned 12 times in the past 3 years" ticket.
- dunham 2y ago
  You're working on bugs? Sounds like there is room in the schedule for another feature.

wink 2y ago

I think in this case it's about a beta of unreleased software (or right about launch), so that doesn't even apply. But I think the main factor is that it's not-business software by a relatively popular (and well-liked) "small" software company.