Author: alcohen.com

  • No, they’re not idiots (usually).

    There’s a well-known quote, “When something is made idiot proof, they will just make better idiots.” In other words, people are great at finding ways to misuse the products we create, and preventing that misuse is an endless task. In fact, in my experience, we spend more time “idiot proofing” our devices than implementing their…

  • Development Sin #1: Leaving “Serious” Testing Until the End

    “We’ll develop the device, then we’ll test it.” Do this, and your project’s timeline will explode. As product developers, we often fall into the trap of thinking “first we’ll build it, then we’ll test it.” After all, how can we do high-level testing until we have a complete prototype? But in my book “Prototype to…

  • Faster, Cheaper, AND Better? Impossible?

    In product development there’s an old adage: “Fast, cheap, good: you can only pick two.” The idea is that for any of these three attributes, increasing one has negative implications for one or both of the others. If we want fast development, we need to throw more money at it and/or cut quality (e.g., fewer…