2008-02-03
A note to would-be photo editing applications
Dear F-Spot and similar applications: please understand that I already have a digital photo 'workflow'. However peculiar it is, it works fine for me and I have no interest in having you replace it; all I want to do is edit a photo every now and then. Can't you just let me do that, without making me import all of my photos into your world or otherwise going through all sorts of contortions?
Or in short: if you make me choose all or nothing, I am going to choose nothing. It's a pity, because I'm sure that there's a nice simple photo editing application somewhere underneath all of the things that I don't want and don't have the time or energy to fight with.
(The Gimp may be complete overkill for simple photo editing, but at least it doesn't insist on taking over my life.)
There is a general idea here: the more your program insists on doing, the more someone has to like about it in order to use it. Conversely, the less it insists on doing, the more it can be used in modular ways, the more chance there is that people going to like some bit of it and keep using that bit, giving you a chance to lure them in to the rest of the program over time.
(Sure, by all means make it capable of running their whole life. Just don't have it insist on doing so, no matter how good it is at it.)