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Tedde van Gelderen
Tedde van Gelderen

Founder & President

Wasted Code Reduction

I recently read an article where Berners-Lee was quoted as stating that the world needed more coders as the shortage of coders is hurting progress and innovation. While I agreed with the gist of the article it made me think if this really is an obstacle to progress or if it could be that we really have too much wasted software code?

Code that was written but never used in released products.  Code that was written but it covered functionality that no user wanted.  Code that was written for a mobile release that never was.  Code that was written to show how cool a new way of re-coding the same functions was without the intention of putting it in the real product. Code that was written and used in the product but never made it to the next release. All this “wasted” code created lots of indirect waste like lost hours, lost happiness, used equipment, electricity, etc.  Couldn’t this waste have been prevented?

I think the world, and product companies in particular, start to look at aiming to reduce their code waste. Save coders the time/frustration, as no one wants to spend time building something that is thrown out, and save companies big money. This is done by:

  1. Reducing code waste through an increase of the quality of software requirements
  2. Shorten and increase the user feedback loop of what is the right thing to build (and I don’t mean Agile here, involve users early)
  3. Look to hire a balanced team of coders, requirement analysts, experience researchers as well as great UX designers

So, the world might not need as many coders as you think if they focus on “unwasted” code. Wouldn’t that solve the latest digital divide?

Tedde van Gelderen
Tedde van Gelderen

Founder & President

Continually looking for ways to improve the experiences of others, Tedde has dedicated his professional life to experience design, research and strategy. He derives energy, motivation, and purpose from improving the experiences of others and believes that every organization — and every industry — can benefit from Experience Thinking.

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