I constantly hear about apps or feature requests that will allow me to do something or let me do something. This often seems kind of idiotic for two reasons.

Feature requests

It always bugged me to see something like “Please allow people to export their ribblets to csv” as a feature request. From a developer perspective, it makes it seem like the person thinks that there is some switch that you can hit on some server and suddenly the feature will exist. Obviously this isn’t the case. The language here should be something more like “People should be able to export their ribblets so that they can create paste, which will get us more customers” or something.

Product

Products that “let” or “allow” people to do something are often pretty ill-conceived. Chances are, people can already do whatever the product is supposedly allowing them to do. For example “My todo app allows you to keep track of your todo list” or “My time tracking app lets you track your hours.” Neither of those tasks are very hard. Congrats on making an app this is somewhat harder to use than paper and pencil.

That kind of wording suggests to me that whoever is writing those apps hasn’t thought very hard. For anything that your app allows people to do, ask yourself:

Are people already doing this?

If so, how?

If not, why not?

How are they already doing it?

Why is your way better?

If they aren’t doing it, why will your way convince people to start doing it?