A Worse Computer; A Better Car

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Worse Computer; A Better Car

  • And, as the delivery guy noted, this is the worst version of the car I bought

    Whoa!  That delivery guy is NOT making a great job of selling the car.

    I guess by the time he enters the picture they already have your money, but surely he can talk it up better than that!

  • Steve, I appreciated your comment: "Perhaps the Lucid developers are under pressure to get features out, but it seems that I've encountered more than a few things that could (should?) have been built differently. Or would have if a little more thought were given to the end-user experience, especially given how easily software can be configured with toggles and switches."

    In my experience, the biggest issue to decent software development is the pressure to get the release done. Management doesn't typically care if the release is complete or whatever compromises were necessary to get it done. They just want to move on to the next one as quickly as possible. And once released, unless there's a bug, they don't want to revisit it later even to improve it. Things are bad enough when feature planning doesn't get enough bandwidth.

    The other related issue is that end-user experience gets little if any attention. Done correctly, it does take additional time and effort away from feature releases, but it makes a huge difference. Healthcare is not immune to this either. Many users of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems get frustrated because the screens were developed without much (if any) end-user input and their workflows. Because they're in a hurry too, they often find shortcuts and work-arounds that help them get along with their day, but circumvent aspects that are important. That's why critical healthcare information is still captured in notes fields instead as discrete data elements. Even though it's readable for immediate patient care, it's quite messy for any data use afterward.

    Most software organizations don't understand the value in taking time to save time. When more time is put into planning, the overall development time is shortened. But, because management wants stuff to go out sooner, shortcuts are taken that end up affecting the long-term result. I'm not suggesting that everything be planned out in detail in advance -- that's impractical -- but there is a balance between the old waterfall approach and the agile approch. Finding that balance is more of an art than a science, but it does work.

  • Lucid makes great cars ..well two. Air and Gravity in various flavors. Too bad they started with Air...just as people were deciding they want SUVs. I expect they'll stay out of bankruptcy with the Saudi backing. But the software thing is real. Had a Honda hybrid and Buick SUV. Gosh I wish Buick would catch up.

  • Aaron N. Cutshall wrote:

    <snip />

    In my experience, the biggest issue to decent software development is the pressure to get the release done. Management doesn't typically care if the release is complete or whatever compromises were necessary to get it done. They just want to move on to the next one as quickly as possible. And once released, unless there's a bug, they don't want to revisit it later even to improve it. Things are bad enough when feature planning doesn't get enough bandwidth.

    <snip />

    Aaron, I agree with almost everything you said here, but I wanted to focus particularly upon what I quoted. Boy, you are SO RIGHT! Management is in a rush to "... get things into the users' hands!" In our environment, the users will be brought in for testing, but it seems to be like we start designing and prototyping long before we bring in users to give us their feedback.

    Rod

  • richard-674310 wrote:

    And, as the delivery guy noted, this is the worst version of the car I bought

    Whoa! That delivery guy is NOT making a great job of selling the car. I guess by the time he enters the picture they already have your money, but surely he can talk it up better than that!

    It's the worst version because it keeps getting better with software updates.

  • Aaron N. Cutshall wrote:

    ...

    Most software organizations don't understand the value in taking time to save time. When more time is put into planning, the overall development time is shortened. But, because management wants stuff to go out sooner, shortcuts are taken that end up affecting the long-term result. I'm not suggesting that everything be planned out in detail in advance -- that's impractical -- but there is a balance between the old waterfall approach and the agile approch. Finding that balance is more of an art than a science, but it does work.

    It's always a balance, but I agree that a little thought, planning, and empathy save time later.

    I'm surprised they don't have more things modeled after Tesla, like deep linking to specific features. They have a model with Tesla, where some really nice UX things exist. Just copy them.

  • jheim wrote:

    Lucid makes great cars ..well two. Air and Gravity in various flavors. Too bad they started with Air...just as people were deciding they want SUVs. I expect they'll stay out of bankruptcy with the Saudi backing. But the software thing is real. Had a Honda hybrid and Buick SUV. Gosh I wish Buick would catch up.

    I'm surprised how many car companies have struggled. I think they don't quite know how to integrate stuff that well. The Cadillacs I drove were better for sure, but so many cars I've driven (EVs or other) aren't great wiht software.

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