After writing about stop signs recently, I seem to have been attuned to traffic warnings, and can’t stop applying them to software teams.
Take this one for example:
I see this sign frequently when I take a nearby road built on clay that feels like a rollercoaster to drive on. It’s already nuts that a 30-year-old major public road should degrade to the point of unusability, but it’s even crazier that the signs for the bumps come after the bumps!
Over and over again, where the road undulates most, there’s one of these nice “bumps ahead” signs—placed on the verge on a bit of level ground that’s 20-30 meters beyond the last bounce! A perfect example of a technician putting in a “fix” that’s convenient for them and meets the spec, but ignores the practical purpose of actually warning drivers before they’re bounced out of their seats.
I’m shocked by how often I see software teams pulling the same stunt: “completing” a feature without providng marketing material and customer-service guides needed by those internal users, building a technically cool “solution” that befuddles users, making a phone whose reception dies when you hold it to your ear and telling users “don’t hold it that way”.
Have you encountered the “works for me, didn’t think about you” phenomenon—and what did you do about it?