Re: [libreoffice-users] MSO's 80/20 rule: 80% of the people use about 20% of the functionality.

On Sat, 2011-06-18 at 10:39 +0200, lee wrote:

> planas <jslozier@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Lee,
> >
> > On Fri, 2011-06-17 at 21:42 +0200, lee wrote:
> >
> > > planas <jslozier@gmail.com> writes:
> > >
> > > > I believe that the 80/20 is somewhat misleading. As noted earlier must
> > > > use approximately 20% but not the same 20%.
> > > >
> > > > I would estimate that somewhere around 50% of all the features are used
> > > > reasonably often and the rest are rarely used.
> > >
> > > There are substantial features 100% of the users use, aren´t there?
> > > What´s the percentage of such substantial features compared to all
> > > features?
> > >
> > > If substantial features make for 20%, you would have 80% percent of all
> > > features of which 50% are rarely used. If I´m not mistaken, that makes
> > > already 60% of all features used reasonably often. When you need to make
> > > a package that provides 60% of all available features, you might find
> > > that there´s another 20% or 30% of all available features that need to
> > > be packaged as well because of dependencies.
> > >
> > > When you need to package 80--90% of all features anyway, how
> > > important is it to put effort into packaging only 10--20% of all
> > > features seperately?
> >
> > The current problem is we do not have any good information of what
> > features are not very important and do not extend the functionality for
> > all but a few users. The question is what mix of included and extensible
> > features should be available beyond those that are important.
>
> Which features are important?

Beyond the basic file manipulation, you have the basic data
entry/handling needed for each application. The features, many wlll
probably be included are useful for some but not all users.

> > One of the problems is you need either a lot different users surveyed
> > at the same time or smaller number surveyed over a longer period of
> > time. For example, most of the time I do not use a table of contents
> > in my documents but when I need the feature I must have it. How many
> > people need this feature irregularly versus those that often use it? I
> > do not know.
>
> There you go: When you need a particular feature, you must have it. When
> you need it, it is totally irrelevant how often you or other users use
> it.
>
> How often a feature is used and/or how many users use it doesn´t say
> anything about how important the feature is. When someone needs it, it
> has to be there.

I would disagree, it takes time to code and debug a feature that is very
rarely used by a small number users. These features may better added as
extension. The problem is where to draw the line and say this one is
included and this one will be a possible extension.


> > One of the marketing tricks is tout all the features you have in your
> > package without regard to how useful many are to all but a handful of
> > users. Look carefully at some the commercial software ads and notice how
> > often they tout features that look nice but you probably will never use.
>
> What´s worse? Having features you don´t need often or not at all in the
> software you use or having to look for other software you don´t use and
> that has the particular feature (and maybe not others) you happen to
> need (maybe only once ever) and use that instead?

This will always be a problem for any software package. It is impossible
to provide all the possible features that may get used very rarely.
Also, it is very difficult to determine in advance all the ways users
will find for the software. That is partly why macros are important,
they provide a possible method to provide really unusual features at the
cost of the user needing to know some programming.

> And what about one of the most important features: being able to create
> a text or a spreadsheet or a presentation or some other kind of document
> you can still use 20 or 60 years later?

The problem is the fact many documents were produced on abandon ware or used deprecated file 
formats, eg old MS Word or Excel formats. 

Some of the problem is caused by users switching programs but doing the
tedious chore of converting the old files to a newer format. Another
problem is the obsolete storage media used. How many people have the
ability to read a 3.5" floppy let alone a 5.25" floppy or old zip disks.

Another issue is the life span of the storage media, most will degrade
with time. 

The solution to file formats being unreadable is to use backward
compatible formats that allow the opening of the older formats. But then
you have the problem of how far back you must go for backward
compatibility. It helps to use open/standard formats rather than
proprietary formats, but this is still a partial solution.


-- 
Jay Lozier
jslozier@gmail.com

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