Software might get better
[Posted to Random Bytes on February 26, 2003 12:37 PM| Links to this post ]
Barry Parr over at MediaSavvy and I did some back and forth on application utility/useability v. aesthetic. This piece on Blogging with Radio and eVectors by the good folks over at Macromedia highlights how progress is being made slowly but surely on solving these and similar problems for application users.

This is an area that I've been bitching about for a while now. Looking back, I could have been far more productive with my complaints, but live and learn. For those of you that haven't been following the story, I was locked in a life and death content management struggle with Radio Userland for the longest time. I think the final score was something like Radio - 992, Me - 1...

On a slightly related note, someone remarked to me yesterday that Radio was the least stable tool in their arsenal, but that its utility was so high that they were having a hard time dropping it for other tools. There are things that Radio is doing that other tools just aren't doing.

As an aside, I really believe that this is because Weiner and the gang view their tool as a web services manager and the other tool providers view their applications as content management system. It would be interesting to get their first-hand views on this.

Anyways, back to Radio's pro's and con's... The experience that this user has had with Radio brings a classic paradox into relief. A paradox that we have been suffering under for far too long - just good enough to ship is what sells at retail.

I really wish that a more customer-centric development practice had taken root.

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