Key Features For Developers

When you think about community and dating software, the features that you envision (and incorporate) should be framed in your mind as "benefits to the users." There are always long lists of options and scripts and suites that you could include, so many that you can get stuck determining a feature set before you ever get started. How do you decide what is important? Who will be impacted by your decisions, and how?

Obviously (or not so obviously) the most important things are what the users will consider most important. You are thinking of two levels of users, too. The first level includes the people who buy the software and build a new community or dating site. However, you also have to "think through" that level to the users they are attempting to reach and sign up. The buyers of your program are users, and the people they attract to their new sites are both their "users" and yours, too. As much as possible, think in terms of what features and associated user benefits will apply to both of them, individually and together.