David Heinemeier Hansson from 37signals was interviewed by Brad Umbaugh of UX Magazine back in 2009. What he said then is still very interesting and relevant today.
One of the big themes in Getting Real is the notion of less software. I think way too many companies and teams try to overachieve by building a ton of software, by building tons of flexibility into their software, including tons of features and by imagining all the things that somebody out there might need in some way, some day. I think that’s a really hard way to develop software because it’s so much fumbling in the dark.
What we try to do and what we advocate in Getting Real is focus more on needs that are closer to you, things that you can directly relate to, things that will directly determine the quality of something. For us, on both the business side and the software side, our approach is simplicity. Simple alone is a huge feature that’s often vastly overlooked. When people compare software products, they often compare checklists of features. In other words, the product that has the longest checklist appears to be the best.
