Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Should You Invest In Documentation, Or UX?
New submitter fpodoo writes "We are going to launch a new version of Odoo, the open source business apps suite. Once a year we release a new version and all the documentation has to be rewritten, as the software evolves a lot. It's a huge effort (~1000 pages, 250 apps) and it feels like we are building on quicksand. I am wondering if it would be better to invest all our efforts in R&D on improving the user experience and building tools in the product to better help the user. Do you know any complex software that succeeded in avoiding documentation by having significantly improved usability? As a customer, how would you feel with a very simple product (much simpler than the competition but still a bit complex) that has no documentation?"
And just make a wiki and the community will do all your work for you.
It's much more Web 2.0 to create a user interface that's minimal to the point of being cryptic, and to call users that can't figure it out idiots. It also helps to have a complete lack of standards.
Invest in both.
You should go into management. Then you can bring world class excellence to any organization, simply by making everything a top priority.