What's Next is a big problem for software because the simple stuff is easy and noticeable, but the refinement is tricky and doesn't look like much.
At my old work, our basic software showed a series of line graphs crossing a page in realtime. Compared to the previous available tech (paper pen printers) it's Big and New.
Comes version 2 of the software and it has many refinements - antialiasing and smoothing algorithms to make the data look nicer and more interpretable but with no loss of significant detail; improved analytical algorithms with tighter results; reduction in data stored per unit of information; so on and so forth. But the users don't see this, and certainly don't think it's "much more" than version 1 - "Shouldn't this be a patch? Why should we have to purchase it again for v2?"
That job also taught me that what users want and what devs think users want are frequently miles apart.
At my old work, our basic software showed a series of line graphs crossing a page in realtime. Compared to the previous available tech (paper pen printers) it's Big and New.
Comes version 2 of the software and it has many refinements - antialiasing and smoothing algorithms to make the data look nicer and more interpretable but with no loss of significant detail; improved analytical algorithms with tighter results; reduction in data stored per unit of information; so on and so forth. But the users don't see this, and certainly don't think it's "much more" than version 1 - "Shouldn't this be a patch? Why should we have to purchase it again for v2?"
That job also taught me that what users want and what devs think users want are frequently miles apart.