Many PMs love to play the feature checklist game. It’s a strategy to win against the competition by having the highest number of features. Many salespeople convince themselves that they lost a deal solely because of a missing feature. In my opinion, this can sometimes work, but often omits more important efforts.
There are other kinds of features that often go unseen. It is these “features” that are rarely requested, but can have enormous impact. Some examples:
Performance is a feature
I remember a previous CEO saying we constantly were doing performance projects and that he wanted to “slay that dragon ” once and for all. I think this misunderstands the nature of performance issues. No matter how much you work on them, you will never slay the dragon. This is because with increased speed, the user will use that speed to do more complicated things. A never-ending cycle.
UX rule 11: The more you improve performance, the more users will increase desired complexity and thereby demand more performance.
Glen’s random list of rules
Working on speed at all levels of your application is crucial to winning the long game. When your system is fast people will give it more benefit of the doubt and increase perception of value.
Consistency is a feature
Rarely is this requested, but when a system has ten different ways to perform a task, built by multiple teams across many time zones, it yields a fragmented and unpleasant experience. Additionally, inconsistency yields difficulty in testing, upgrading, and documenting the system.
Many companies increase features by acquiring another company. The common (and unfortunate) strategy is to slap your logo on the newly acquired UI and change the colors. This is mistakenly called “integrating the product”. Sadly, this significantly increases technical debt and makes the user feel confused and unhappy.
Salespeople and executives focus on the existence of the feature rather than a truly integrated product offering. Spend the time to integrate right and it will yield a better long term outcome.
In a large company, different business units will build functionality in different ways. Each BU optimizes for their own go-to-market motion. But as the saying goes, “If you want to go fast, go by yourself. If you want to go far, go together”.
Extensibility is a feature
Whether you are a B2B or B2C software company, having plugins to extend the functionality is a powerful asset. When you can have a library of value-added functions created by third parties you can exponentially strengthen your position in the marketplace.
When building your user interface, build with extensibility in mind from the ground up. Always have information architecture slots that are ready to receive creative functionality from partners. Salesforce.com was one of the first to do this on a massive level and reaps the rewards to this day.
Resiliency is a feature
I remember when someone at Marketo accidentally deleted the ENTIRE database of every one of our customers. It was a complete disaster. Adding insult to injury, our disaster recovery system did not work. This was truly the kind of thing that could have destroyed the business. Luckily, we were in early beta and our customer base forgave us.
Resiliency is not something you can bolt on after the fact. You need to build in safeguards and recovery systems from the beginning. Assume that problems will happen. I remember hearing that Amazon would purposefully shut off different services to simulate disasters so their teams could build resiliency into the offering. I think that’s a brilliant strategy.
Good design is a feature
Of course, I would say this. (duh!)
Rather than admonishing sales or PMs, Ill target this at designers. PMs, executives, and salespeople are always trying to get the feature out of the door. This is their nature. You, the designer, have to stop being reactionary. You can’t just let the PMs and engineers roll over you. You have to be proactive and design the better solution. Maybe this means working extra hours to find the time. Maybe it means you have to start the work months before it’s actually due. No one is saying this is easy.
The best designers get out ahead of the problems and think about the global solution before it’s too late. Too many designers think their job is to do what product management and engineering tells them. Take responsibility for your craft and work. Good design is a real feature that makes a long term different in your companies future.
Service design is a feature
How do people get trained? How do they get support? How do they expand their usage over time? Products are not just the user interface. We have to think about how the end-to-end user experience works. From the buying process, to the end-of-life process (cradle to grave) – good service design will help your company thrive. You do not want to be the company that everyone hates (Comcast! Samsung!)
Often the services the customers use including documentation, training, support, etc, are all built by different people with different design ideas. This is why Service Design exists as a craft. Most companies don’t focus on this and just let each division do their own thing. I would love to see companies adopt Service Design as a major discipline like they do with Project Management, Support, or Marketing.
Summary
There are many things a company can work on to ensure their success in the future. Features are just one vector. Maybe this post is for CEOs to help their companies prioritize more than just adding features. If it doesn’t come from the top, the only hope is from the grassroots. Not an easy task. But I suppose this is why so much of our products and services are inconsistent, poorly designed, slow, and frustrating experiences. We can do better.
Whatya think?