My Grandma-Triggered Technology Realization

I recently witnessed my 87 year-old nonna (“grandma” for all you non-Italians) on a Skype Video Conference with her sister in Sicily. They were laughing and exchanging family stories. Think about that… the internet is built on a complex system of web servers, transfer protocols, and optical networks and my nonna is using it to gossip with her sister. #NonnasWhoSkype

It feels like our world is becoming more and more consumed by technology every day, but why? Hint: It’s not because your new iMac Pro screen has 14.7 million pixels or because some new JavaScript library makes it easier to modify HTML. It’s because of what all of these technological advancements help us achieve, and as the founder of a web and app development company, I can say that keeping this principle in sight is paramount to delivering great work to our clients.

Consider how technology is commonly leveraged: we use WordPress to build websites to market our companies, we use Coinbase to trade Bitcoin to try to earn money, we use Facebook to passive-aggressively let our friends and family know what a jerk our ex-boyfriend is (let’s try to stop doing that by the way).

No one uses these technologies for the sake of using them, they use them because these technologies help accomplish a task.

We’re not using Snapchat because we love the feeling of interacting with an interface developed in Objective-C. We use Snapchat because it’s a fun way to communicate with our friends and because the flower crown filter makes us look cute AF.

TECHNOLOGY IS A MEANS TO AN END

You may think I’m stating the obvious here, but it’s something that needs to be said because people often ignore this simple principle when they’re executing on technical projects. This is something that both clients and developers are susceptible to forgetting.

A developer may insist on using Ghost CMS to build a client’s website without realizing the collection of user functionality being sacrificed that may come out-of-the-box with WordPress.

A client may have their heart set on building an e-commerce site in Squarespace, but doing so might severely limit the user experience customizations of their site, which may not be the case on, say, Shopify.

When building a website, app, or any piece of technology, always make decisions based on what will bring the most value to the user because that’s why we use technology in the first place, because of the value it brings to us.

And who knows, maybe one day, if it proves to be of value, I’ll see my nonna trading CryptoKitties on the Ethereum blockchain.

What’s something you think is often overlooked in tech? Let me know in the comments below.

Mike Maffattone is the founder of Gigareef, a web and app development company. Check out our work: gigareef.com

Do you need a website or app built? Get in touch: info@gigareef.com