Sometimes software product developers can get carried away by their enthusiasm. Back when software “products” were still in their infancy, in the late 1980s, I came up with a great product idea. I called it “uBridge” to be a bridge between the business user and the software developer. Most often, (back then) when a business user wanted a software application prepared, the software developer would be explained what was required, sometimes in writing and sometimes verbally and the developer would be expected to build the software to meet those requirements. In nearly all cases the resultant software would be very different from what the business expected and would need to be re-worked. The cycle would go on a few times until the business was satisfied. So I came up with the idea of building a software that the business user could use to visually describe what was required.

I discussed this idea with a few friends and colleagues and they all thought it was a good idea. So I built the software product that looked great and was easy to use. I showed it to a journalist who wrote for a prestigious national business newspaper and he wrote a half-page review on it that made me proud except for the concluding sentence which was, “I wonder which business manager will actually use it.”

And his conclusion turned out true - I couldn’t sell a single copy of the product despite the glowing newspaper review! The reason was simple: I had built a great product that no business manager would be able to find the time (or inclination) to use! I learned a valuable lesson from this experience - in my enthusiasm to build what I thought would be a great software product I should have first built a simple prototype and run it through a business manager. Had I done so, I would have discovered the discomfort faced by the manager in using the product. Unfortunately, even though users are more savvy with digital applications, many new software products still fail because they were not designed with only the user in mind.