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On Situated Software - Designing For The Few?
janbjurstrom writes "Clay Shirky has published a thought-provoking (and long) essay discussing the concept of 'situated software', musing on changes in software development, from general systems catering to thousands towards applications 'form-fitted' to small, specific groups and particular social contexts. A lot of interesting observations about the differences." Shirky argues: "Most software built for large numbers of users or designed to last indefinitely fails at both goals anyway. Situated software is a way of saying 'Most software gets only a few users for a short period; why not take advantage of designing with that in mind?'"
One of them, CWirc, has a known target of maybe 15 people, and another 50 occasional users. And everybody who uses the program seems to like it a lot, because:
It caters to their specific, specialized desire
I have time to implement or improve things by request, to fit someone's wish almost to a tee (meaning, I don't have to make compromises)
The project is so low-bandwidth and simple that I can make it evolve exactly like I, and the few users, want, at the pace I want
So, while big projects with wide audiences are good, small (and also very small) ones with a very small audience have their place too. That's what makes open-source / free software work, because Microsoft and the likes don't have time or money for smaller projects, and big generic ones often don't do what people want.
73 de F8EJF
Sounds quite a lot like what's behind Extreme programming rationale to me.
Do what the users want, show them what you do often so they can change it as it goes, and don't try to do more than they need, and, well xp recommends you try to keep it clean nonetheless so you can extend it if need be.
However this is pretty hard to apply in real life,. Lots of people who are oblivious to both usability and technical constraints come in the loop and kill it all. They require plannings and time estimation to be able to satisfy their political agendas. They will first ask you to validate technical choices, only to later force them onto you when you tell them that the features sold to them are not present.