I kept suggesting more features and updates while we were working on 4ward NG. My partner welcomed some of these ideas and we argued about some as well. I can’t remember everything he said; I’m not good at quoting words off arguments but his point was that it is not everything a visitor or user suggests on a website or app that you add or push to your remote repository.
In one of those days we were arguing, he shared a link to explain his points and I understood. A customer might mean well but it’s left to you to understand and calculate how these suggested features might affect you while satisfying them. Or do you feed your entire garden to your pets because you want to satisfy them?
This INC. article is a good example
Taiwo and I had a meeting with the CEO of OkadaBooks this past Friday. We had managed to get a few authors to leave comments and feedback on a new website design OkadaBooks is working on and it was a beautiful something. The feedback was great but it’s not all the ideas tabled at that meeting that would be implemented later on, still, we listened to everything.
My point is, you don’t just roll out updates and new features suggested by users while building an app or a web-app without second thoughts or it could get sore on the long run. Don’t get me wrong, feedback is great. If you don’t welcome feedback from customers and co-workers you’re going to be working in a Vacuum. Listen to everyone but don’t add every feature suggested by users.
One final truth, You can’t satisfy everyone, ever.
“This world will burn because people keep wanting more…” – Tekken Movie (Paraphrased)
