I have tried to explain the idea behind this many times with varying levels of success. Well, the guys at 37 Signals hit the nail on the head with a formula in their post, “What’s the suckage to usage ratio?”

Suckage to usage ratio 101

The 37 signals post uses the Amazon Kindle as an example of how a single feature can have massive suckage but still produce a great product. It sucks to type on a kindle but how often do you actually type on your Kindle? Not often, the kindle is for reading not typing. I only type to search for a book which is probably less than 5% of my use.

Suckage to usage ratio and you

As your building your website there will always be features and pages that need love. Maybe its a bad layout, maybe its bad programming or maybe its a bad idea. If its rarely used how much time should you spend making it perfect? Websites have finite resources (time, budget and manpower), choose their allocation carefully.

Consequences of Suckage

At best failure to understand this principal will lead to late milestones and blow your budget. Worst case scenario it will blow your whole project. Developers can only do so much to keep you on track but in the end we will usually write it the way you want it.

Applying the suckage to usage ratio

Come to think of it you can apply this formula to everything. People, places, things, anything that takes up time and money.

• Purchase of a home or car
• A book or movie
• Where to go for vacation
• Who your going to vote for
• Your Relatives
• Your dog

The key to a full life may very well be in the suckage to usage ratio. Certainly worth applying to your website.