Thanks! Glad you liked it. I’m sure adding users to the mix will help, particularly if they are used not just to develop requirements but also to do usability testing. I’ve read about people doing low-cost usability testing labs with screen recorders and webcams. (That way you can keep technical staff out of the room entirely, and see what a lone user actually does with the software.) I’ve never done this myself, but I’d like to at some point. I know I’ve got a product that could benefit from it.

Users are certainly less hamstrung by developer’s tunnel vision, but they too often don’t really know what they need. Sometimes non-technical people aren’t good enough at finding abstractions, whereas developers are a little too good at it. Finding somebody who can hit the sweet spot, whether he come in the guise of “user” or “developer,” is the trick. I sure haven’t yet.

But I’m trying to change that with the next major version change. And we’re trying to get more users on the development team to help with both requirements and testing.