Why the product upgrade is not as big as before

In the rapid development of the Internet era, any new products if not to be abandoned by the times, timely replacement is inevitable. But in fact, many of the products after the upgrade is not as big as before, more and more rubbish.

Recently experienced a number of frequently used products of the latest version, including: Google Reader, Sina Weibo, Echofon and so on. Discover that for most products, new products mean more useless features, more flashy but more gaudy interfaces, more complex operational experiences, worse performance, more bugs, and more. Of course, recently Google Reader new version of the function is less than the old version, but after the revision, still received a lot of people's scolding.

Why are some products that are simple and easy to use will become so rubbish after several rounds of upgrades? Why are there so many products or services that are extremely scarce after being upgraded?

A product can be called as a good product first decided by the vision target, followed by the core design concept of product design, and finally the product design and implementation methods.

It's relatively easy to make a good product at a certain stage, only need products to provide the core functions to meet the needs of users can be, but in a one-time version of the update, the continuous is to make the times a good product is difficult, especially in the face of various changes and temptations: Product strategy changes, product team changes, user changes, The change of competition situation and so on, as well as various temptations in the process of change. These changes and temptations can lead to changes in product vision, core design, and detail design during product upgrades, resulting in the failure of product upgrades.

Product strategy Changes:

Changes in the company's overall product strategy may lead to a change in the position of a product, thus affecting the strategy, positioning, and strategy of the product, and the impact of such a change on a product may be fatal. Google + Reader, for example, is a strategic focus of the recent socialization strategy is to use + +, so all products such as Google Reader, Gmail and so on must be adjusted around the integration with Google +. This led to the revision of reader, the social sharing of a larger adjustment. To the so-called synergy between the products, destroyed the number of products of a better future.

Product Team changes:

The original person responsible for the product separation or no longer responsible, the so-called "Bupobri", the new people always have to deny and tear down the original product design impulse, so that can reflect the value of their work, and the new product vision, design concept of most have their own set of methodology, So in the new version of the product design will use their own methodology to refactor the product, so although only the old version of the upgrade, but the product team, design concepts have long been changed.

Related to the product team also includes the new ability, the product of the feelings, enthusiasm and other reasons.

Changes to target users:

With the rapid increase in the number of users, the user group also with the fission, various types of users put forward a seemingly reasonable variety of needs. In order to meet the needs of different user groups, products are constantly new features, products become more and more bloated. At the same time, due to the maturity of the market and the change of competition situation, the choice of target user group is no longer single, and the customer's expectation of product changes. The original measure of good products may have changed, in which case, all product upgrades face such challenges: change or not, how to change? How to balance the needs and expectations of different users?

Changes in competitive situations:

Because of the competitor's killing, in particular, competitors launched a competitive similar products, in order to maintain their competitiveness, the focus of the product is no longer to focus on how to better meet the needs of users, is no longer to maintain their own rhythm and unique style continue to develop, but focus on what competitors are doing then each other cottage, The rush to launch a new version of the same as competitors, the final product into a lifeless and soul of garbage.

Side Effects of success:

Even the same product team, after the old version of the successful, the new version and the old version of the quality may also be a far cry. For a number of reasons, a typical scenario is: in the old version, because the resources are relatively limited, the team does not allow too many ideas, so must resist all kinds of temptation, focus on the most important core functions, and because team members are extremely hungry for success, we also hold the passion for products and common goals.

After the success, the resources are no longer the biggest problem, because resources, time, funds and other factors suppressed for so long a variety of "great ideas" are ready to be, and all the direction is the opportunity, are for competitors to build competition barriers. single-minded, concise become a synonym for conservatives, platform, pluralism, one-stop-style into a new team terminology.

The success of the previous version, in our success as the King of the only standard of the country, successfully cover up all the problems of the team, the company's resources are unlimited tilt, the desire of the leader is also rapidly expanding, and team goals are no longer a single, the desire for success and enthusiasm is no longer as strong as The team has and is given more expectation, more resources, more commitment, more internal friction, more chaos, and ultimately the fruit is a worse product. Such phenomena can be called "the side effects of success".

Unanswered questions

How to avoid the product upgrade after more and more garbage trap, in fact, there is no standard answer. The above problems in fact many times there is no absolute right and wrong points, but the control of the problem, the same reason in different scenarios to say right and wrong is not the same.

So the core problem is actually how to find a suitable balance between product goal, team ability, team desire and rhythm, so that we can cope with the changing world. A team that moves from one success to another requires more focus on goals, a clear understanding of team ability, an effective control of desire and a sense of rhythm.