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Quote du jour

JP Rangaswami: When you don’t focus on the user, the user gets shafted.

That’s when the antecedent of you is a developer or a company that needs, by mission, to focus on users.

Such may not be the case, however, for deep infrastructure developers. This is why with Linux, for example, we draw a sharp distinction between kernel space and user space.

What happens in user space depends on what happens in kernel space, but user space doesn’t run development in kernel space. More about that here and here.

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2 responses to “Quote du jour”

  1. Eric Norman Avatar
    Eric Norman

    I think there’s another way of saying the same thing in all cases.

    When you don’t understand who your audience is, your audience will be shafted.

    Reply
  2. Crosbie Fitch Avatar
    Crosbie Fitch

    There’s also a ‘user shafting’ problem when the developer focuses on the customer instead of the user.

    If software is developed to maximise sales rather than user productivity, one can find that ergonomics deteriorates.

    I wonder if free software will remedy this?
    A free market in software enhancements should enable commissions for improvements to come from long term users just as much as novice’s.

    And while users may not necessarily be the best to know how to improve usability, they can certainly appreciate it.

    Reply

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