A few days ago we launched a new design for CodeHive. A layout that should scale well for the ideas we have in the pipeline.
As developers, we always want to craft the best work we can produce. But this obviously comes at a cost. The more polish you put into your work, the longer it takes for you to get the product or new feature to your users.
When working on the new layout, I had to constantly fight off the desire to introduce new features or spend more time on polishing up little details. The goal was simply to execute on the new layout and get it in front of our users as quickly as possible.
I think this is why Facebook and Twitter are on fast development cycles for their mobile apps. They want to get the latest and coolest features out to their users as quickly as possible. If there are bugs that were introduced because of this, no worries, a new update is coming out soon to mitigate the problem.
After we put the new design up, there was definitely bugs to be squashed. But what was surprising to me was that the users didn’t seem to mind in helping us find these bugs. Their first reaction was praise for the new design and then graciously they started to help us find bugs that were intoduced. Since we’re constantly deploying we’re able to fix these bugs within the same day we’re notified of them.
Lesson learned: be nimble when shipping new features and products.
