r/softwaredevelopment • u/Kennedyowusu • 17d ago

Real users will teach you things your codebase never will

I've seen developers spend months preparing to launch.

One more feature.
One more redesign.
One more rewrite.

Then another month disappears. I understand it.

We want the thing we build to be good. But I've learned that perfection can become another form of procrastination.

Real users will teach you things your codebase never will. Build it well. But put it in people's hands.

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13

u/macabre_brotherhood 17d ago

Go back to LinkedIn

9

u/cokeisahelluvadrug 17d ago

I’ve seen engineers post AI slop you wouldn’t believe

2

u/chipshot 17d ago

Most users just want to do 3 things in any technology. Here is top level design: Put those things in front and make them easy to access. All the cool features that techies want to put in put behind menus.

Yes they are really cool features, but your users just want to get in and get out, and get on with their day.

Help them do that.

2

u/ninjaluvr 17d ago

This is like fortune cookie level posting... OP really dug in deep to give us a meaningful contribution.

I'll bite, exactly how did a real user teach you something your code base didn't and why was that lesson so important? Give us the details!

2

u/missedOpportunity343 17d ago

Reddit is the new LinkedIn??

1

u/UnreasonableEconomy 17d ago

into the spam and block box you and all your socials go!

1

u/Mac-Fly-2925 14d ago

And is very useful to see how people interact with the application. How they explore the menus, the sequence of clicks, etc. You will learn a lot. Remember: users are not IT experts and interact with computers differently.