Rhea (my 6 year old) and I were fooling around with Lego blocks today afternoon and had an impromptu design contest.
We built little cars.
Here is mine. Stark in black and white. Military-sh. Macho. Single seater
.
This is hers. Audacious colors. Beach buggy. Centered driver seat. Family car. And flowers! Flowers on a car where headlamps ought to be !
Which one would you buy?
What is the lesson in here for software?
3 comments:
Soory Sunil,
The one with flowers win hands down.
Interestingly, there is a little story from my IIMB days. In a class during the product mgmt course, on of my proffs told this little counterintuitive but profound anecdote:
He quizzed a couple of ladies, both over 50 years and presumably, worldy wise. He asked them why they bought the cars ( each over 8 Lakhs) they did. In both cases, they responsded - the looks. one of them found the headlights 'cuter' than the nearest choice!
Sometimes it is just unfair.
Unfair when you are holding the lemon.
Ask Steve Jobs :)
And the "Lesson for Software", Lego Edition:
If you can build the underlying components, you can put together a highly customized solution - or better, get the user to build it himself and feel good about it.
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