A town lord was designing his city’s defenses, as there were terrible roving hordes of bandits sacking cities just like his. He had finished half the walls, when the emperor of the entire province happened to travel through the town.
“These are the worst looking walls I have ever seen! They need to be painted!”
The town lord, who feared the hordes but did not want to anger the emperor, immediately stopped building the walls and started to paint them. When he was finished, he hurried to finish the walls and build the town gates. But because time was short his engineers used unfinished timber instead of smooth planks.
Then the emperor, hastily retreating from bandit attacks, traveled back through the town on his return journey.
“That gate is the klunkiest thing I’ve ever seen! Replace it!”
The town lord, who knew the hordes were coming but did not want to disobey his leader, ordered his engineers to destroy the gates and build gates made of smooth planks. Just then, the hordes of bandits rounded the corner and made short work of the town. They captured the town lord, killed the people and burned the buildings to the ground.
As the flames lit up the sky, the leader of the hordes patted the town lord on the back and said “this is by far the best looking town we have ever destroyed, and it’s people were too exhausted to fight”.
Users of technology and the ‘deciders’ of technology invariably end up with two separate goals.
Users want the technology to work. Deciders want it to look good, and because they are deciders they tend to get the lions share of input.
Both of these constituencies are important. Deciders make technology possible. But Users of technology are what make a solution successful.
Thus, the most successful technologies are those that work. Myspace, Ebay, Amazon, Craigslist, and de.lico.us, are all (web based) examples of very successful technology that didn’t look great (some looked absolutely terrible) but had huge user-driven success. The corporate world of infotech has similar examples.
So if you’re working for deciders, make it look good. If you’re trying to attract users, make it work. Both of these are valid activities, but finding the balance is key to being an effective technologist.
If you’re a decider…spend plenty of time thinking like a user. Realize the penalty for failure in this.
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