Do one thing and do it well
March 11, 2009 – 1:46Back when I was young and still harboring some dreams and friends (real ones, not those you follow), we used to hang out almost on a daily basis at Hummus Ashkara. The thing about Hummus Ashkara is that they only do one thing (surprisngly – Hummus) and they do it exceedingly well. Unlike a lot of the other places operating at the same time they didnt have a wide variety of things on the menu. Just this one thing. Hummus. And for that – they did it amazingly.
I have the same feeling (sans the calories) everytime I take a look at Balsamiq’s Mockup tool. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Balsamiq is an extremely simple, extremely intuitive application for creating fast mockups. By drag-and-dropping variuos UI elements (starting from big ones to the little ones) you can create amazing screens in no time.
Balsamiq know to do one thing and that is to create UI mockups. Nothing more and nothing less. There are so many software products who do UI mockups “as well”. And hence – are lacking.
Dont get me wrong – there is a value to integration into a suite of products (e.g. Microsoft Office) but this integration should be in addition to the ‘standalone’ or ‘local’ capabilities of the targeted product.
Until recently, I treated Balsamiq as a nice tool, but lacking. Yes, I was impressed by their sales numbers, And then they introduced the ability to add extensions / plugins, through this site – Mockups to Go. People using Balsamiq are contributing UI patterns. Now – the festivities can begin. I can imagine us putting some time in creating the SAP Signature Design as a Balsamiq pattern and personally – my life would become so much better. No more powerpoint / visio to try and convey my thoughts and vision for some products to all the relevant people. That is probably the hardest part of being a product manager / product definition / program manager – whatever the title is – the problem remains. Balsamiq (with the aide of some patterns) can come to the rescue.
