Perfection is the enemy of good.

I agree in general with the author's thesis, but I think it needs to be applied carefully. E.g., I'd say perfection in avoiding walking off ten-story buildings is a most desirable goal.

From that piece:

Quote: I'm sure someone thought many of these solutions we're perfect.

:eek: Spellcheckers--they'll let ya down every time.

A few more of mmy favourite Voltairisms:

Quote: Common sense is not so common.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.

In software development there is a term called "feature creep" or "bloatware." I think this applies here - spending too long trying to build-in features which are not required is often the cause of failure for a software project.

The same applies to web design, spend too long worrying about making something perfect and you endanger the project as a whole. As the article said:

Quote: A good Web design or solution is based on solid goals. How you achieve those goals and the process you take in getting there is very important.

When to stop? When your goals are achieved! (As long as those goals are obtainable).

Good post Suzanne - I'll keep it in mind

i think the most important thing is to make the costumer that he will get what he pay for. if he is willing to pay 500$ box he will get a perfect site for 500$ if he wants to pay 5000$ then he will get a perfect site for 5000$ that's how i work i treat everybody the same and do the perfection there willing to pay for

Sliding scale perfection, heh.

I think as much needs to be done as possible to make things work, but I'll draw the line at say, having it display the same in Netscape 4.x as Safari. It can be done, but that perfection is unreasonable because it causes so much IMperfection in the other areas, like search engine optimization and user experience.

I found the part about perfection being subjective a good reminder to me that when I'm dissatisfied and the client and users are thrilled, I should, perhaps, rejoice a bit, too.

I found that article quite useful actually, thanks for the link (its in my bookmarks now)

Quote: but I'll draw the line at say, having it display the same in Netscape 4.x as Safari. It can be done, but that perfection is unreasonable because it causes so much IMperfection in the other areas

But if that's what the customer wants (even at the expense of SE optimisation etc.) surely that is perfection?

bingo! I just have to explain to the client that I don't do Flash and get them to hire a colleague instead. Or I help the client understand that this goal does not allow them meet their overall objectives for the site...

Because perfection is subjective, the perception of it can change. While some disagree, I do think that it's my job to understand the client's motivations and goals for the website and to advise them on what will and won't help them get there.

As you said: "Bingo!"
In my subjective opinion you have just described half of the service businesses like ours provide