Don’t only build what customers ask for
Do EPIC Shit. - Unknown
In 2001 BMW brought back MINI as the MINI Cooper. It was a small hot hatch that was a hit with enthusiasts and people seduced by the cute nostalgia. Over time people asked for more. Make it longer. Give it four doors. Make it an SUV. MINI did all those things and is now struggling. MINI gave customers what they asked for, but it never gave them what they didn’t know they wanted. The first product was great. Everything else was just an extension of that. There was never a next Wow! Full disclosure: I owned a 2013 MINI Cooper S.
Software works like this too. When features only get added based on customer requests, software gets bloated. It’s harder to learn. It’s harder to maintain. Also, nobody notices.
Incremental improvements are like small paycheck increases. They get absorbed into the budget and people quickly forget the impact of that raise. Additionally, a feature doesn’t exist until someone adopts it. It’s very hard to get an average user to change their process to internalize a new feature, even if that feature offers some improvement.
A new big bang feature, an interface overhaul, or some big wow is more like a promotion. It’s a big deal. There’s a big raise that comes with it. There’s a lot of commotion made over it. People go home and tell their spouse or their friends. Software needs this occasionally.
Software needs to be refreshed, even rebooted (I cringe at the pun) occasionally. Applications need a big splash. They need to be rethought, reorganized, and reimagined to keep them from getting stale. This doesn’t only apply to software, but after the initial big splash, it’s important to avoid the trap of just adding more features that customers ask for.