Over the past month or so there have been a bunch of different ideas kicking around in my head that would make great blog posts. But being that it is in fact late on a Sunday night, I decided to go after the low hanging fruit… A quick discussion about process and quality in product development.

There are very few companies that measure up when it comes to making a great product these days. Very few need to. Americans have long loved a great deal: All you can eat buffet; Buy one, get one free; Bigger, better feature lists. However, I argue that things are changing. Because of things like Web 2.0, (Note: I hate to even utter the phrase “Web 2.0” because it’s really just an outgrowth of the technology finally being able to offer the kind of quality user experiences that designers and information architects have been drooling over for, well since the Web.) the iPhone, and Apple’s overall strong market surge as of late, consumers are starting to understand that what looks good on paper is not always what works the best in practice.

I’m reminded of a quote I saw once on a Mac news site:

“We are very careful about what features we add [to the iPod] because we can’t take them away”. —Steve Jobs

This pretty much sums up the way that Steve Jobs thinks. Feature lists are irrelevant if the user experience is compromised. That is not to say that features are unimportant, but rather that the implementation of the features is at least equally important as the feature itself.

The old adage, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” comes to mind. This is especially relevant in the technology sector because you have many companies rushing and fighting to be the first to market with a new technology or device that your competitor is invariably also developing. Conventional business wisdom is to cut corners on the development process, trim features, or skimp on design, and get it out the door. Then fix it later.

But what happens with all those people who your marketing department is able to dupe into actually buying your inferior product? They’ll forever have the sub-optimal user experience you sold them stuck in their head. (This is why I’ll never even consider buying another Sony Ericsson cell phone.) Even worse, your users will complain about their experience to their friends—or anyone who will listen. You’d better hope that the unsatisfied user doesn’t happen to also run a popular blog, lest you end up in the situation that Orbitz got themselves into. (Side note, I’ve never used Orbitz, and after reading this that story, I never will.)

Being first to market doesn’t really mean much if you don’t have what it takes to get traction. Just ask the creators of MySpace, or even worse, (gasp!) Friendster. I’ll bet there were a ton of people who thought, “Big whoop. Another social networking site.” And now they’re likely all users of it. Getting back to my point about features vs implementation, everyone thought Apple was bat-shit crazy for entering the cell phone market after it had been cornered by Nokia, LG, and Motorola. But that’s because they’re thinking about the feature list on paper. All in all, the iPhone on paper is rather unremarkable. It doesn’t do as much as other smart phones, and it costs more. Why would anyone buy it?

Well all you have to do to answer that question is to pick one up and use it for five minutes. Everything about it is fun. When compared to using a “regular” phone, it’s just downright amazing. The benefits of properly implemented features can be seen in the statistics of mobile web browsing: In six months since it’s launch, Apple’s mobile safari has already become the most dominant mobile user agent, out pacing mobile IE and all other cell browsers. Amazingly, this statistic was achieved on AT&T’s pitiful edge network.

The take away from this statistic is that people actually enjoy browsing using the iPhone. (Or even more likely—people can actually use the browser for something relevant!) Even when faced with slow speeds, people responded better to intuitive interface over beefy features. It’s no longer enough to be the first to release a product. You have to be the one who makes the product truly useful.