I was talking to a B2B product manager who told me “The industry we target sees little difference between our product and our competitors.” Their plan is to differentiate their product from its competitors. My question: to make your software different from that of the competition, should you mainly add new functionality or mainly improve the usability?
Bob Holt addresses this question in his article, Death by 1000 cuts. He asks: “As the worlds of our customers and our own business models continue to change and evolve, should we be changing the balance between improving the usability of our current products and adding new functionality?” Holt answers his own question: “I say absolutely yes. After all, it wouldn’t it be a shame if our revenues bled out through a thousand little cuts while we are rushing around trying to build the next Big Thing?”
But the same product manager I mentioned above also told me: “I firmly believe that you cannot win only by addressing usability. You must also look for the future of the market—that is, you won’t innovate past your current box—to avoid getting leapfrogged.”