It’s becoming easier and cheaper to build on the web and the barriers are continuing to be eroded. Thousands of hours worth of development can now be downloaded in an instant: Simply tie together some of the multitude of APIs available, throw in a Facebook connect button, host it on Heroku and boom! You have the next .ly or .li or .whatever-is-in-fashion-today. Of course, this is amazing and I believe that it is where we should be heading. But what this does mean is that you, as a startup, are going to have to put a whole lot more effort in elsewhere if you really want to have a piece of the cake.
While the barriers to development come crashing down, users themselves are the next hurdle. For millions of startups building a great service or app is now no longer solely about the technology (in most cases). Nor is it soley about the number of features you can provide. These do matter; But, increasingly it’s where technology and features meet the user where the battle is won.
Companies like Apple have been driving up the users expectation of interface and visual design. Now it’s the users turn to expect more: interfaces which were complicated are now intuitive and easy to use. User centered design and user experience is increasingly important for your startup.
At Bluefields we all really value the importance of a great user experience. However, at times we’ve found it hard to balance a UX-driven design process with some of the principles and processes of lean development.
I believe this is an issue for many small startups and it is something which I’ll be exploring over the next few articles.
