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Fans of this month’s Wired magazine story “The Good Enough Revolution” (written by me!) should check out the new book Trade-Off by Kevin Maney. Maney has spent some serious time thinking about the shifting power balance between high-quality, high-fidelity products and their cheaper, easier, more convenient competitors.
Maney’s conclusion is that when designing a product, it’s best to shoot for either high fidelity or high convenience: Try for both and you'll almost certainly end up with a confused, middling piece of crap. Makes sense, though I disagree with part of Maney's premise–I believe “fidelity” is actually taking a permanent back seat to convenience. Nevertheless, it’s worth a read for another take on shifting ideas of quality.
