Functionality Over Usability vs Design Thinking

Developers should apply this concept when building minimum viable products (MVPs), prototypes, or backend systems where functionality is essential for validation or integration, and user interaction is minimal meets developers should learn design thinking to enhance collaboration with designers and stakeholders, ensuring products meet real user needs and improve usability. Here's our take.

Functionality Over Usability

Nice Pick

Developers should apply this concept when building minimum viable products (MVPs), prototypes, or backend systems where functionality is essential for validation or integration, and user interaction is minimal

Pros

• It's useful in agile development cycles to quickly test core ideas, but should be balanced with usability considerations as the product matures to avoid poor user adoption
• Related to: minimum-viable-product, agile-development

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Design Thinking

Developers should learn Design Thinking to enhance collaboration with designers and stakeholders, ensuring products meet real user needs and improve usability

Pros

• It is particularly valuable in agile and cross-functional teams for creating user-centric software, mobile apps, and digital services, as it reduces rework by validating ideas early through prototyping
• Related to: user-experience-design, agile-methodology

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. Functionality Over Usability is a concept while Design Thinking is a methodology. We picked Functionality Over Usability based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

Functionality Over Usability wins

Based on overall popularity. Functionality Over Usability is more widely used, but Design Thinking excels in its own space.