

Warning Signs That Your Product Sucks - ruang
http://davidcancel.com/solve-a-critical-problem/

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hopeless
I've learnt from experience that there's another warning sign: Silence. If no
one is making suggestions, complaining, or promoting your product then it
indicates apathy. Which means that you aren't solving a critical problem

~~~
ruang
Reminds me of the saying: the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference.

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ryanelkins
What if your product is just not critical? Is that a _terrible_ thing? I can't
imagine every application is absolutely critical to an operation. I would
argue that most B2Cs and a good percentage of B2Bs are not critical software,
but many of them do just fine.

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sliverstorm
For example, if your product or app is a game.

"I’m really busy right now but I’ll start using your GAME soon"

I'm sure every game developer would like to make a game that people play even
when they can't afford to spend the time playing it, but because they don't
doesn't mean their game sucks.

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allwein
I really wish the author had mentioned the name of the app with the sucky UI.
I would love to take a crack at implementing a competing program with an
awesome UI so I could completely own that market.

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teej
It's gotta be JIRA or AdWords. Those are the two most widespread apps with
crappy UI that Performable is likely to use.

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gxti
Odd, I must be the only person on the planet who actually likes JIRA. Probably
because my point of reference is Bugzilla.

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Deestan
I _really_ like Jira too, but I could still go on and on about things I find
crappy about it. :)

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i386
If you can spare the time we would love more UX feedback for JIRA :)

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Deestan
Happy to hear that! I'll wait until we upgrade to the newest version before I
start, though. No use complaining about stuff that's already been fixed. :)

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i386
Great! We look forward to it. Any feedback you have can be reported on
<http://jira.atlassian.com> :-)

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neovive
Although solving a critical problems is a significant advantage (especially in
the b2b market), I think it is also possible to establish a business based on
adding-value or improving upon various aspects of a business or consumer
experience. Add-ons to existing products and web apps that simplify a more
complicated workflow are good examples.

I find that much of the functionality of many successful web apps can be
replicated in a spreadsheet, but the added value of the time savings, improved
functionality and simplified workflow make the web app worth the price
(although not necessarily critical).

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brlewis
The warning signs are people saying "I'd use your product if..."

OK, but what if people use and like your product for years, but it still
spreads slowly?

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pmjordan
Broadly speaking, your market might be too small (-> grow your product into a
larger, related market) or your market _ing_ might be inadequate (failing to
increase your share in your current market) or the competition is better in
some way.

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chadmalik
This is an interesting blog post because I've noticed that often the apps that
solve the most "mission-critical" problems have the worst UIs. Maybe its the
complexity of the task as much as lack of effort? I'm not sure. On the other
hand the most beautiful UIs are often on top of apps solving extremely trivial
problems.

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blacksmythe
More likely you keep working on your UI until you get traction. If you are
solving a real problem, you can get traction while your UI is not very good.

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kordless
Is there a corollary for this that includes the 3 warning signs your blog post
sucks?

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dcancel
If there is I haven't found it yet. Thanks for checking out my post.

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nhebb
To be honest, your post was just OK, but it lead me to your button generator
(<http://www.performable.com/buttons/>), which is hands down the best online
button generator I've come across.

[insert lame cancel button pun here.]

~~~
dcancel
I love the critical feedback!

Would love some on how we can make the button generator better.

~~~
Deestan
Having the "Yes, send me product updates (big improvements coming) & marketing
tips!" checkbox enabled by default gives off a bad smell. It is the little
brother of e-commerce sites that sneak stuff into your cart when you aren't
looking.

Let subscriptions be an active decision instead of an accident.

