Swirl Connect

An update to the design dilemma that’s halted much of our work over the past two weeks:

Calmer heads prevailed, and we decided that we were getting too focused on what features to implement, rather than focusing on what problems we were trying to solve. Instead of discussing "how cool this would be," or "wouldn’t it be neat if we could," we revisited our original concept, and examined how we wanted to help Swirl users. The result of this was trimming back many of the gee whiz features that we became fixated on, and resulted in the inclusion of an entirely new chunk of functionality that aligns perfectly with the goals we have for the use of the software.

This new functionality chunk doesn’t have the geek appeal of all of the features we ditched, but it is a perfect fit for the product concept, solves a problem, and advances our original goal, which is to make it easier to connect with others.

Looking back on it, I’m sorry to have lost two weeks of coding time, but I’m more optimistic than ever about the direction we’re taking with the product. The product concept, and the product itself, is of the utmost importance at this time, but sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees.

Lessons learned:

• focus on the concept, and the problems you are trying to solve, instead of the features;
• get your head out of the weeds

If you’ve had any similar experiences (or dissimilar for that matter), I’d love to hear about them.

Tags: product development, software design, software requirements

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Design by Shaun