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Originally Posted by achen
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I was struck by parallels between the "Product Evolution Stages" (in the link) and
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. I would argue, though, that most innovations should be considered primarily as performance improvements.
As the example cited of the mobile phone shows, it is perfectly legitimate to trade off different aspects of performance. The mobile phone was originally far more expensive than traditional fixed phones, with poorer performance in almost every respect. To gain the unique performance advantage of "mobility", customers were prepared to accept the poorer performance and the additional cost. Improving the other performance aspects led to less of a trade-off, and hence greater take-up.
This is more unusual in applications software, where it is almost universally assumed that existing performance provides a worst-case benchmark for future performance. That is: new systems shall be at least as good as existing systems in all respects (and significantly better in at least one respect). Even here, though, we often see slower response times, for example, being accepted in return for improvements to other characteristics such as "usability" (whatever that is taken to mean). Less often and less intentionally, I would contend, than could usefully be the case. MS Word Lite (tm) anyone?