Future generations
There comes a realization that some problems will need to be solved by future generations, in the business world this usually means the person that will have your job after you leave.
The problems we leave behind could be for several reasons: political, technical limitations or just plain trying to get a minimum viable product out the door. Some of the concessions we make for progress is a headache waiting to happen for someone, in a worst case scenario, a headache for ourselves six months down the line. Just in the past couple of weeks a couple examples have cropped up
Example 1:
Icon creation can be a challenge, the simpler the metaphor one can use the better for all involved. For example, a down arrow could have several possible meanings, the most likely is ‘download’, but it could also mean ‘apply’ or ‘move down’. What if the application has an ‘apply’ feature but not a download? Do you assume that at some point in the application roadmap that a download feature might be added and go with something else or do you go ahead and use the simpler, more direct metaphor and let future generation sort it out?
Example 2:
According to standards on a website I was involved in we could not have orphan pages. It forces us to make very deliberate decisions of document taxonomy. But occasionally, there is a business need for what could be an orphan page. What do we do? Do we set up a new rule? Do we use development resources to create a new branch of the document tree? What if this really is a one off page and there does not appear to have other pages created like it in the future? Do we throw the link on a backwater internal page where no one will find it and let a future generation revisit it?
The only way to can feel okay about screwing the future is to document, document, document. Put down somewhere why the decisions were made, what the context was and/or the limitations that may have boxed you in to a less than desirable situation. At the very least the person taking up the mantle after you has somewhere to start and does not need to re-invent the wheel. it’s the least we could do.
Posted on Friday, June 11, 2010 in Business
