March 19, 2013
The Folly Of Options

I want options, but I also want a good experience. In Checkboxes that kill your product Alex Limi goes through some simple checkboxes in Firefox that will, in a couple of clicks, make the browser completely unusable, and for anyone not just a little technical, completely “break” the internet.

It’s a fine balance you need when you design a software product to give people options, but not too many, resulting in them shooting themselves in the foot. For me, KDE is one extreme (every option exposed) and GNOME / mac are close to the right mix (for me), but sometimes going too far towards the “too few options” direction. Some people whine and cry about removing options, but if you’re pissing off 1% of your users and making things easier and better for you and 99% of the rest of your users….





Posted by Arcterex at March 19, 2013 11:38 AM