Features, features, features

One of the hardest things about building a product like Big Contacts is deciding what features to include. A contact manager could potentially have a nearly infinite number of features. ACT and to some extent salesforce.com have tried just that. Of course, what suffers is quality and, more so, ease of use.

Joel Spolsky, who writes one of my favorite blogs - Joel on Software, addressed this in a recent post simply titled Simplicity.  He correctly points out the fallacy of the 80/20 rule. There is a common knowledge rule that says 80% of users only use 20% of the features of a product. Therefore it would follow that focusing on those 20% of the features people would use would make for a better product. What Joel points out, and is obvious in retrospect, is that those 20% of the features are different for each person! I might use only 20% of the features of The GIMP, but there is probably one feature I cannot live without that you've never heard of.

Given that, how do you make decisions about what features to include? There are no easy answers. There are two things we try to do here at Big Contacts. One is to use the product every day, all day. We find out quickly what needs improving that way. Secondly, we listen carefully when people offer ideas. We try to find out what they are really trying to do and, if it is important, find an efficient way to do it. But, even then, we have to filter out those features that just don't seem to be widely applicable, or have an easy workaround. Like I said, it ain't easy.

Comments

[Art Chang]

Can del.icio.us meet Big Contacts? Tagging would make Big Contacts perfect. Social search - like del.icio.us - would enable me to categorize and group contacts in a flexible, dynamic way, and allow others to flexibly do the same thing. This would be especially useful in a tight workgroup setting. Inflexible, menu-driven categories and groups have been my #1 bugaboo with contact management systems since I first used Act! v1.0.