Walk The Line

10:30 AM Dec 12, 2005

I know the question that's on your mind probably more than any other:

"How are the team at DIA like Johnny Cash?"

Well, besides our legendary code jam at Folsom Prison (an evening that nobody who was there will ever forget), there is one way that we're like the Man in Black: we walk the line.

What do I mean? I mean that developing software for a wide audience is a balancing act. On one hand, you want to make the software as easy to use as possible. On the other hand, you want to make it as powerful as possible, so people can do cool things with it.

Think about the software that you really enjoy using. Probably you enjoy it because its developers found just the right balance between adding in features and keeping the interface streamlined and simple.

A great example of this is the current open-source glamour boy, Firefox. Firefox has an elegant interface that can be pimped out as much as you want with extensions. The Firefox team got the balance just right. But it wasn't their first try: for five years before Firefox broke out, their primary product was the Mozilla Suite, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink monstrosity that actually even included a kitchen sink. Unsurprisingly, the suite never caught on; it wasn't until they cut the fat and polished the basic Mozilla product into Firefox that they found mainstream success.

Here at DIA one of our priorities is to figure out how we continue to drive our platform towards the same kind of balance. Right now we offer a ton of useful features, but too many of them are too hard to find or understand how to use; this makes a new user's first few times through the software harder than they have to be.

For this reason, we're looking for feedback about ways we can keep the power of our software while making it easier to use. Got a great idea? Send it to me at jlefkowitz@democracyinaction.org or just enter it as a comment on this post. Your ideas could make life easier for DIA users around the world -- including yourself -- so let us know what you think!

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