How to develop good product features?
By Yanal Yahya (yyahya@edu.hse.ru)
Introduction
Software development is a journey filled with complex decisions. It begins with deeply understanding the software's requirements, encompassing both functionality and performance aspects. This understanding shapes the software's behavior, interactions, and user experiences. Equally crucial is the strategic selection of features. With countless ideas pouring in from various sources, effective prioritization is the key. Communicating these choices effectively is fundamental. This journey is a balance of strategic thinking, technical prowess, and creativity, all aimed at creating features that enhance software and meet the evolving needs of users and businesses. In this essay, we'll explore these critical aspects of software feature development, emphasizing the significance of understanding software requirements, strategic feature selection, adhering to design principles, testing for success, and the role of documentation and visual aids.
Understanding Software Requirements, Design, and Strategic Feature Selection
Effective development of product features relies on a deep understanding of software requirements, encompassing both functionality and performance. These requirements define how the software works and how users interact with it, emphasizing the importance of translating them into a well-structured design. One critical design principle is modularity, which assists in creating a flexible framework for new features while maintaining the integrity of the existing codebase.
Simultaneously, feature requests come from various sources, making prioritization crucial. The focus should be on features that align with the primary goal of the product. When declining requests, express gratitude, offer a brief explanation, and back your decisions with data. Effective communication and strategic selection are vital components of this process.
Critical Considerations for Feature Development
Seven key questions serve as a structured framework for evaluating and prioritizing feature development, ensuring that each addition aligns with the product's objectives and user requirements:
Why Enhance? Clearly define why a new feature is necessary and how it will improve user engagement and retention.
Measurable Impact? Ensure that each feature can be quantitatively evaluated to prevent scope expansion.
Development Time? Assess the time needed for development and consider the option of breaking complex features into smaller, more manageable components.
Avoid Complexity? Concentrate on keeping features concise and aligned with the primary goal of the product to prevent confusion and unnecessary complexity.
Manage Risks? Evaluate the technical, user, and development risks associated with each new feature to mitigate potential challenges.
Embrace Innovation? Prioritize innovative ideas that can yield significant results while being cautious about investing heavily in small, incremental changes.
User Input? Take into account user feedback but rely on testable hypotheses and user actions to validate the success of a feature. Users may not always express their needs accurately, so actions often speak louder than words.
These seven questions offer a structured approach to assessing and prioritizing feature development, ensuring alignment with the product's goals and the evolving needs of its user base.
Promoting SOLID Design Principles
The SOLID design principles are crucial for ensuring well-structured, maintainable, and extensible features. The Single Responsibility Principle (SRP), one of these principles, emphasizes that each feature should serve a clear, single purpose. This encourages a more modular and sustainable codebase, simplifying the development, testing, and evolution of features over time. SOLID principles encourage developers to create code that is easy to comprehend, modify, and extend, essential attributes for the long-term success of software features.
Testing Product Features
Testing is a vital phase in product development. It helps refine and validate features, ensuring they meet their intended goals and expectations. Different testing techniques are employed to distinguish promising ideas from less viable ones. Not all ideas carry the same level of risk, some are straightforward, while others present complex challenges. Testing techniques encompass various dimensions:
Feasibility Testing: This dimension assesses technical feasibility, addressing concerns related to technology, scalability, or third-party components. It ensures that the software can effectively support the new feature from a technical perspective.
Usability Testing: Usability testing ensures that interaction designs are user-friendly and preemptively identifies sources of confusion. This phase aims to ensure that the feature is not only functional but also intuitive and user-centric.
Value Testing: Much of the feature development process revolves around validating the perceived value of the feature. For new products, it's essential to ensure that customers are willing to buy the product at the intended price and switch from their existing solutions. For enhancements to existing products, the focus is on convincing customers to embrace the new feature or design. Value testing ensures that the feature aligns with user needs and provides real value.
Business Viability Testing: Sadly, it's not enough to create a feature that customers love. It must also work for the business. This is what we refer to as business viability. It involves assessing whether the product can be built and provisioned cost-effectively, marketed successfully, and sold by the sales team. It also considers whether the solution aligns with the company's brand promise and legal requirements. Business viability testing ensures that the feature isn't just a technical success but also a strategic one for the business.
These testing techniques ensure that product features resonate with users and align with the complexities of the business landscape. Each dimension of testing addresses specific aspects, guaranteeing that features meet their intended goals and fulfill the needs of users and the business.
Documentation and Visual Aids
In the realm of feature development, clear and concise documentation, along with visual aids like diagrams, are essential. Documentation should define the feature's purpose, requirements, and provide technical details. It acts as a reference point for developers and other stakeholders, ensuring that everyone involved has a common understanding of the feature's specifications. Visual aids, such as sequence diagrams and UML diagrams, help illustrate complex processes, making implementation and understanding more straightforward. These visual representations help developers implement the feature accurately, reducing the chances of errors. Additionally, they aid readers, including other developers and product managers, in understanding how the feature functions within the broader system. Documentation and visual aids ensure alignment, streamlining development, and reducing errors, ultimately enhancing the quality of the feature.
Balancing Creativity and Technical Feasibility
In the pursuit of creating effective product features, there's a balance to be struck between creativity and technical feasibility. While it's crucial to envision innovative solutions that can address user needs, it's equally important to consider the practicality and resources required for implementation. Collaboration between designers, developers, and stakeholders is key to finding this equilibrium. Creativity fuels innovation and ensures that the product remains competitive and engaging. However, this creativity must be channeled effectively to ensure that the resulting features can be developed within the available resources and technology constraints. The balance between creativity and technical feasibility is a continuous process, requiring ongoing communication and collaboration among the various stakeholders involved in feature development.
Conclusion
In my opinion, software development is always changing, and this helps us make better features. We need to know the software's needs and choose the best features. We also follow important design rules and make sure we talk well with others. Testing is important, and so is keeping good records. We also need to be creative and practical at the same time. This is a big journey, and it's how we make software that meets people's needs and helps our organizations succeed.
References
- Yoskovitz, B., & Croll, A. (2013). Lean Product and Lean Analytics (pp. 208-216)
- Cagan, M. (2018). Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love (pp. 172-174)