Attention to detail in Help Spot

I’ve been following Ian Landsman’s development of HelpSpot since the beginning, and it is very interesting to observe his attention to detail. Check out his latest preview. I worked in a network operations center some years back (and developed tools for them as well), so I have an idea about “trouble ticket” systems.

Ian is building software that is “subtly innovative”. If you’re entering an established market and produce something that is wildly different from everything else out there, you’ll have an uphill battle getting people to use it. What I see in Ian’s preview is that he’s providing some new ways of doing things and thinking about things that are unsurprising and natural.

Seems like a great software design strategy: unless you’re in some brand new market and you’re inventing the rules, make the overall experience follow what the user expects, but pay attention to the details because that’s where you can really improve the experience.