It just doesn’t matter is a great treatise by Jason Fried of 37signals of why they’ve left out certain stuff from their latest product.
From the man himself:
“…if it doesn’t change your behavior then it just doesn’t matter…Would these things be nice to have? Sure. Would they be great to have? Sure. Would they be cool to have? You bet. But do they really matter? Nope. And that’s why we left them out…”
“The best designers and the best programmers aren’t the ones with the best skills, or the nimblest fingers, or the ones who can rock and roll with photoshop or vim, they are the ones that can determine what just doesn’t matter. That’s where the real gains are made.”
Amen.
I’m a big fan of Basecamp and Backpack, because they’re great tools, but they’re also a core education in web application design…using them every day _teaches_ me about good interaction design…how many software apps can you say that about?