Around the mid-1970s at IBM I attended my first ever Design for Usability training session, and the lessons learned then have stuck with me ever since.
I’ve maintained a very keen interest in Design and Usability, see a page crammed full with usability resource links on my web site here (or backup/mirror site here). Also one of my other blogs: Leave Good Enough Alone for a different perspective.
I was prompted to write this short post while updating my web site for a changed link to Featuritis vs. the Happy User Peak:
“Continuing to pile on new features eventually leads to an endless downhill slide toward poor usability and maintenance. A negative spiral of incremental improvements. Fighting and clawing for market share by competing solely on features is an unhealthy, unsustainable, and unfun way to live.”
Image attribution: Creating Passionate Users blog
I wonder where Lotus Notes is on the featuritis curve, or Windows 7, or the Apple iPhone, or … you name it!
What about “open systems”, are they past their peak? See Every open system develops towards the unusable (the article with a changed URL that led me to write this post in the first place).
IBM is obviously still trying very hard. For example, listen to the recent Taking Notes Episode 105 - An Interview with Mary Beth Raven and Julie Forgo from the IBM Lotus UX Team (01 January 2010).
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