I belong to several professional and personal interest groups. What follows is an email from an elder stateman of one of those groups. He was writing about software utility and listed some first principles to insure a product's utility. They were (to me) elegant, brilliant and transferrable to so many other things. I share them here with his permission.
A Few First Principles, aimed mostly at making the product more appealing and comprehensively suitable to regular, daily use for new and potential users, and involving not only obvious uses....
1-- the well-being of any product depends disproportionately on the newer generation of users.2-- determine the principal frame of reference for all similar products, regardless of people's opinions of its strengths and weaknesses
3-- determine if your target audience is subsidized by the company providing the principal frame of reference for all similar products.
3a ---- If the company makes its products relatively inexpensive it will lead to challenging choices for your audience as they calculate cost-benefit analyses involving alternative products
3a---- this is especially the case among people entering your target audience, but let's admit to the frugal disposition found among long-time members of the target audience; they frequently believe that a basic feature set represents an entitlement. The other end of this same spectrum of long-time audience members are unwilling to purchase alternatives to what is provided "for free" as part of the standard computers
4-- any activity that is taken for granted today -- that is, habituated by the years of use of the principle reference frame -- but which is not available in an alternative application is highly problematic
5-- any add-on product activity that takes a user away from the core product to carry out a principle frame-like activity is to be avoided
5a---- i.e., keep the target audience using the product for activities that are basic in today's environment
6-- what is true of comparisons with the principle frame product is also true of comparisons with principle frame add-ons
7-- If your product has features that are so far beyond any competitors' yet lacks that basic feature-for-feature comparison with the principle frame, your products' advanced features are irrelevant.
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