22. Failure demand: when mistakes improve your metrics

You are exhausted. It’s shipped. Good work. The new widget does the job. It implements the design beautifully, with nice touches like animation and typographic flair.

It’s almost identical to the Operating System’s built-in widget.

Almost. The native widget has a few more polished details your version missed. Of course, your version matches your organisation’s branding needs, so in that way, it’s a substantial improvement. But in every other way, it falls short. How could it not? The built-in widget can use APIs and interfaces your app will never be able to use. It doesn’t have to worry about ballooning the app’s download bundle.

You have just spent four weeks of your life over-engineering a widget that is still under-engineering compared to the built-in alternative.