http://tynerblain.com/blog/2007/06/14/change-is-bad/ Software product success. Tue, 22 May 2012 20:46:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 http://tynerblain.com/blog/2007/06/14/change-is-bad/comment-page-1/#comment-310472 Scott Sehlhorst Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:17:33 +0000 http://tynerblain.com/blog/2007/06/14/change-is-bad/#comment-310472 Thanks Bill, and fantastic anecdote for how a failure to stay focused on customers and goals can cause your company to fail! Thanks Bill, and fantastic anecdote for how a failure to stay focused on customers and goals can cause your company to fail!

]]> http://tynerblain.com/blog/2007/06/14/change-is-bad/comment-page-1/#comment-310111 Bill Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:56:23 +0000 http://tynerblain.com/blog/2007/06/14/change-is-bad/#comment-310111 I like your analysis Scott. Do you remember the backup software fastback? It was popular in the early 90's. This reminds me of one of the releases they made, and I recall it crippled the company if it didn't bring it down altogether. On one of the projects I worked on we all used fastback to backup our development machines. Environments were less sophisticated then, than they are today. They made a release where they entirely changed the UI. The old UI was great, easy to use, and absolutely nothing wrong with it. The new UI was combursome and clunky. Everyone hated it. We stopped using it, and it was a common reaction by all their customers. I don't recall that they ever recoverd from that. I think this makes your point about evolution vs. revolution. People were satisfied with their old UI, in fact it was the best aspect of their product. They chose to evolve features that didn't require evolving. Also, it points out the importance of having the right goals, as you say, knowing your customers, and finally getting some good feedback from real customers before making some high impact changes. I like your analysis Scott. Do you remember the backup software fastback? It was popular in the early 90′s. This reminds me of one of the releases they made, and I recall it crippled the company if it didn’t bring it down altogether. On one of the projects I worked on we all used fastback to backup our development machines. Environments were less sophisticated then, than they are today. They made a release where they entirely changed the UI. The old UI was great, easy to use, and absolutely nothing wrong with it. The new UI was combursome and clunky. Everyone hated it. We stopped using it, and it was a common reaction by all their customers. I don’t recall that they ever recoverd from that. I think this makes your point about evolution vs. revolution. People were satisfied with their old UI, in fact it was the best aspect of their product. They chose to evolve features that didn’t require evolving. Also, it points out the importance of having the right goals, as you say, knowing your customers, and finally getting some good feedback from real customers before making some high impact changes.

]]> http://tynerblain.com/blog/2007/06/14/change-is-bad/comment-page-1/#comment-241420 Links for 2007-06-19 : Jonathan Babcock Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:10:53 +0000 http://tynerblain.com/blog/2007/06/14/change-is-bad/#comment-241420 [...] Change is Bad? Mistakes are Worse | Tyner Blain [...] [...] Change is Bad? Mistakes are Worse | Tyner Blain [...]

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