The Inmates are Running the Asylum

Reference:
The Inmates are Running the Asylum
Alan Cooper
2004  Sams

Chapter 3: Wasting Money

Summary:
Deadlines in the software development business are not like deadlines in other professions.  There is often pressure to ship a product on the estimated date of completion, regardless of if the product is truly finished or not.  Many managers compensate by setting a deadline much earlier than when they expect the product to be completed.  As it turns out, a quality product that ships late will most likely be quite successful.  Programmers are more or less in control of what features are implemented in a product, but features are not necissarily good.  A mistake that gets made with multiple iterations is that if someone keeps releasing poor versions of a product, fewer and fewer people will come back to try the latest revision.  Bad software ultimately leads to higher costs, either through increased maintainence or technical support.  Prototypes are valuable, but should be used as a tool to see how the product will work, rather than as a foundation for the final product.

Discussion:
This sounds like a repeat of the software engineering class I took last semester.  I must admit there have been several occasions over the past few years that I felt an assignment had an unreasonable deadline set, and I wonder if the professors were simply being unrealistic or if they were giving us less time that they anticipated it would take.

Chapter 4: The Dancing Bear

Summary:
 Many times, people will be satisfied with a product simply because they don't know that a better alternitive exists.  People are presented flashy products with many options, but these products may not be able to do any one task particularly well.  Many current products follow current norms because it's the way it has always been done, instead of developing features that are useful to the user. 

Discussion:
While I agree that there are improvements that can be made in product development, but some of Cooper's criticisms seem a bit unfair.  Some of his criticisms seem to hindge on an omnipotent programmer who can forsee all possible ways that a product will be used, but is too lazy to implement them.

Chapter 5: Customer Disloyalty

Summary:
Desirability is an aspect of design that increases a product's likability, but is not necissarily needed.  Desirability generates customer loyalty, ensuring repeat business.  A lack of customer loyalty will hamstring a company over the long term.

Discussion:
Customer loyalty is very important and can help drive other peoply to try a product on the recommendation of their friends.  I thought the comparison of Apple, Microsoft and Novell was interesting, and I will be interested to see how things develop in the future.