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Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by ksec on Friday October 02, 2020 @11:19AM (#24663520)
>I didn’t fully understand this as a developer, but it become crystal clear as a product manager.

20 years, I still dont understand how most developers dont understand. I guess that is the difference between a developer mindset and product manager mindset.

And hence why lots of startups failed.

Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by PragmaticPulp on Friday October 02, 2020 @12:21PM (#24664179)
> 20 years, I still dont understand how most developers dont understand.

Look at the tools developers use throughout their careers: Powerful version control systems that support nearly every operation you could imagine. Command line tools with pages and pages of documented switches. Server software with configuration options for every little thing you could ever want to adjust. Well documented open source software that can be changed to your liking with a simple fork. Websites full of fellow developers freely asking and answering almost any question you might have.

When dealing with complexity is the story of your career and you spend 40 hours per week doing this for years on end, it's easy to forget that your customers aren't in the same boat. Most of your customers are using your products to get their job done. They want to learn it quickly, get in, get out, and get back to their work as quickly as possible. They might not even know if they're going to use the same tool at their next job, so taking time to learn it in depth isn't appealing.

Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by ryandrake on Friday October 02, 2020 @01:48PM (#24665079)
I've worn both product and developer hats, and honestly the way I see it is: You need to decide whether you are building tools or toys. Neither is bad, but you should decide on one and stick to it for the product. You can make money building tools and you can make money building toys. But you're going to turn away customers if you first make a tool, then turn it into a toy in the name of "simplify" and "making it sleek".

As a professional user, I bought a $2,000+ workstation. I expect the applications I run on it to be powerful tools, not toys. But, there are also plenty of other people who run apps on $200 mobile devices who are fine with fewer features. Pick one market and go after it.

Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by Spooky23 on Friday October 02, 2020 @03:16PM (#24666063)
Trello is what it is. You can pay lots of money for JIRA or something.
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by sanderjd on Friday October 02, 2020 @05:43PM (#24667316)
You took this in a slightly different direction than I expected, after I was in violent agreement with the beginning of your post.

> Most of your customers are using your products to get their job done. They want to learn it quickly, get in, get out, and get back to their work as quickly as possible.

This is true, but a missed opportunity. Many people could benefit from more powerful tools to do their work more quickly than currently possible. The "get back to their work" part is the dissonant part; the reason the power tools work for developers is that using those tools is our work, not something we have to leave to get back to it. This should be the case for more people than it currently is. It is not just developers though, there are really powerful tools for a bunch of high-leverage fields, for example image, video, and audio editing, and many different jobs in finance. A lot of the low hanging fruit may have been picked, but I suspect there are huge industries where this sort of thing is still ripe for picking. For instance, I still constantly interact with professionals using awful underpowered tools for their very specialized jobs, for example lawyers, accountants, and teachers.

Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by gmadsen on Friday October 02, 2020 @06:14PM (#24667591)
I can guarantee that most teachers do not want "power user" software. I think you are over estimating the need and desire of non tech related professions to use complex technology, unless that complexity is hidden completely for the user and they can take advantage with simple interactions
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by sanderjd on Monday October 12, 2020 @07:30PM (#24760710)
"powerful" is not a synonym for "complex"
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by oblio on Friday October 02, 2020 @05:47PM (#24667344)
Learning has a cost and most people don't enjoy learning.
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by vbezhenar on Friday October 02, 2020 @08:52PM (#24668545)
I think that many people enjoy learning. But they enjoy learning different things. Developer might enjoy learning new programming language. Artist might enjoy learning new painting techniques or may be new Photoshop features. But if you will ask artist to learn Lisp to write image processing algorithm, probably that won't be interesting for him. And if you will ask developer to learn Photoshop to add shadows to that icon, probably he won't be happy either, unless he happened to like both programming and painting at the same time.

So may be it's important to understand your target audience.

Of course some people just hate their job and the only thing that makes them happy is the end of the day...

Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by oblio on Saturday October 03, 2020 @07:45AM (#24671332)
Some people? Most people. Statistics put the number of people who hate their jobs at around 80-85%.
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by strokirk on Saturday October 03, 2020 @07:55AM (#24671369)
Citation?
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by oblio on Saturday October 03, 2020 @12:12PM (#24672939)
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/212045/world-broken...

Remember, as someone on this forum, you're on Over Achiever Central.

Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by strokirk on Wednesday October 07, 2020 @05:59PM (#24713266)
Thanks, very interesting! Seems to have fairly high variability across regions (94% in Japan), would be interesting to see a split between industries as well.
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by eggsnbacon1 on Friday October 02, 2020 @11:55AM (#24663911)
In my experience, its usually project managers and sales doing feature driven development while developers beg them to stop.

Devs have to deal with all the bugs and messy codebase

Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by shard on Friday October 02, 2020 @02:16PM (#24665383)
I think this depends on the culture of the company. In sale&marketing-centric companies, it can be as you described. In engineering-centric companies, engineers sometimes create features and products that customers haven't asked for, and then it's up to sales&marketing to drive adoption, even if it is against customer protests, because the investment needs to be recouped.
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by thinkharderdev on Friday October 02, 2020 @07:20PM (#24668033)
I had had the exact same reaction. My career sometimes feels like a series of meetings in which I implore product managers to keep things simple and consistent instead of adding every bell and/or whistle imaginable.
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by tmpz22 on Friday October 02, 2020 @12:01PM (#24663968)
Developers are rewarded for features, PMs are rewarded for happy customers. It’s usually that simple. Especially in companies where you are rewarded with promotions and bonuses this value proposition rules the entire product. See for example Google’s entire product portfolio.

It’s promotion-driven-development.

Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by jcims on Friday October 02, 2020 @12:40PM (#24664390)
>Developers are rewarded for features, PMs are rewarded for happy customers.

I generally feel that most things are best when they are in some kind of healthy tension. Appeasing power users happens because it appears to align with both of the above.

Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by naavis on Friday October 02, 2020 @12:05PM (#24664006)
I think most developers already have the mindset before working in any company. Maybe the mindset propels them towards computers and software development.
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by MattGaiser on Friday October 02, 2020 @12:10PM (#24664060)
If you are developing stuff as a hobby, new features are still the reward.
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by sanderjd on Friday October 02, 2020 @05:45PM (#24667336)
You think? When I do hobby work, the reward is getting to spend as much time as I want tweaking things to be a nice as I want them to be. Which is why I've never made anything, but have had lots of fun and learned a lot.
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by comeonseriously on Friday October 02, 2020 @12:19PM (#24664156)
Depends on the dev. I fully understand. But then I'm a minimalist by nature so maybe that has something to do with it. The more knobs and dials there are, not only the more chance for something to break, but more chance for an inconsistent user experience. The latter drives me nuts usually more than the former.
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by MattGaiser on Friday October 02, 2020 @12:06PM (#24664023)
As a developer, if someone does not constantly want new features, I am out of a job. Frankly I am better off with aggressive development even if it hurts customer acquisition.
Re:Trello co-founder Michael Pryor on pandering to power users by mhp on Friday October 02, 2020 @12:56PM (#24664562)
There is always more engineering work. The questions is does the app need to add new vocabulary type features to get there, or is the work focused on making the API more flexible for 3rd parties, or the signup process less onerous, or making exports take half the time they normally take. There's definitely a balance but they have to be seen as worthwhile and valuable goals instead of adding new words to the object model or new pages to the site. Typical product creation can sometimes be "can I make this thing possible?" instead of "should I make this thing possible or accept that this is not the job of this application". Of course you can make your app do anything you could possibly want... what should it do?