Contriving

Today, I was telling my mom about a web app I’m developing for property owners, property managers, or landlords and she said something that got me thinking about a misconception some people have.  With concern she asked:

How do you know all of the reports that a landlord might want?

I kind of stuttered around because of course I don’t know all the reports landlords might want.  I didn’t know what to say because it threw me for a loop.  It was kind of like the owner of a horse and buggy asking the owner of those new-fangled car thingies, “but where do you put the reigns?”  We’re talking about different paradigms.

I’m fairly familiar with the business, I grew up around it, and I’ve read many books on the subject and interviewed a decent number of potential users of the product but I’m no accountant that spends all day, every day doing financials for a company with 10,000 apartment units.  I wouldn’t claim to know everything my users might need no matter who the potential audience of my site might be, and that doesn’t matter!

Web sites as applications are even better at this than software in general, but you don’t have to have every plausibly useful feature implemented on the day you push the site to production.  Over time the site just becomes more and more useful to its users.

Here’s how the ownership experience could work if a golf cart worked like a web application.

Web app as a golf cart

So you bought a golf cart.  Here it is:

It’s clean! It doesn’t make funny noises!

You use the cart for a few weeks, but it’s not really comfortable or as useful as it could be and the manufacturer recognizes this.

Then, one day you go out to take it a spin and it’s transformed!

Now our custom embroidered golf bag won’t get wet if it starts raining.

Amazingly, you didn’t spend any more money, or really do anything other than get usage out of it up to this point and all of a sudden it’s better!

This is nice.  But.  Always a “but”.  Golf cart users are a fickle bunch, and, well, it’s just not very stylish! This update to the golf cart gets rave reviews from the pragmatic crowd, but a lot of users shun it because it’s kinda ugly.

I’m sure you can guess what happened.

It’s beautiful and not overdone at all.

All of your golf-cart-using buddies are so jealous.  You’re the envy of the neighborhood.

After some time golf cart owners start asking “If we’re riding around on wheels wouldn’t it be nice to be able to go places other than the next hole on the course?”

The manufacturer hears the cries.

You guessed it, a few days later you’ve got an electric car!

It goes on roads.

It’s cool.  It goes places.  It’s more featureful and useful than that original basic golf cart.

You get months of use out of it.  You can’t imagine it being any better.

One day, you go out to your garage and find it transformed yet again!

Now THIS is a golf cart!

What exactly does this have to do with a web site?

Web sites (and software in general) aren’t a thing. When you create a website it’s an evolving, ever changing construct that continues to get better without any effort on the end users part.  It just gets better.