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Comment by TillE | Hacker News Reader

> I would hazard that fewer than ten percent of users use a multiple-monitor system on a regular basis, so any benefit would have to be ten times as great as the benefit of features that have broader use.

What kind of logic is that? And how would you even mathematically quantify the "benefit" of such a feature, save through tedious usability studies that could only come after you've implemented it?

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You need some sort of cost/benefit to go off of to make decisions on which features get included and which get cut.

One way: consider how many Windows users would switch OS's or not chose a Windows computer as their next purchase due to the lack of multi-monitor taskbars. I don't need any sort of study to say that it's probably not a very high number.

And for those really needing it, there were always great programs like Ultramon providing this feature.

Single features don't make up my mind when choosing an OS. By that logic, the only deciding UI feature would be a mechanism to switch between tasks. I don't think anyone will stop using Windows because of the lack of widgets or of a find feature or of a crappy task manager.

You want a cost/benefit criteria? How about (number of people who care) * (how much they care) instead of just (number of people who care)?

I wasn't presenting the be-all, end-all criteria for determining which features to implement, just that there needs to be one in order to make a decision. Your example is likely better, and I'm sure Microsoft's taskbar team uses their own method:

"Part of the hard job of product design is deciding which 20 features you have the resources to pursue and which 180 to leave for next time. If you choose the right 20, people will say you're the best new UI feature in Windows, or even the best Windows 7 feature, and they won't mind too much that you didn't get to the other 180."[1]

I think single features can certainly sway a purchaser. If I like the OS X notification center quite a bit and its integration with 3rd party applications I use a lot, then it may well cause me to lean in the direction to purchase a MacBook over a Lenovo. Of course they're all taken as parts of a whole, but it's still conceivable that people may not be able to perform their job/task in a way that they are accustomed to without X feature.

In addition, while some features may not sway you, it is not unlikely that you are an exception to the rule.

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2010/05/31/10017...

Even if you could quantify it, I don’t agree with the 10x ratio that the original author proposes. Early in the development process, you will be implementing “low hanging fruit”—features that are easy, and provides great value.

Lower priority features are lower priority because they provide less benefit, but that doesn’t mean that you should not get to them eventually if you want to improve your product. If you have a variety of proposed features, you’ll start with ones that provide 100x benefit (compared to some benchmark), move on to 50x and 20x and 10x and so on, and eventually you’ll get to features that are barely worth the cost.

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