I’m in New York as I write this staying in a small minimalist hotel that works for the most part, until I step into the shower. There appears to be no temperature control options for the water. That can’t be right, so I step out, look around, step back in look around, look for secret buttons somewhere; nothing. I turn the water on with the hope that it will get hot over time; wrong again. A barely warm shower it is then. I make a mental note to never stay here with my wife.

It is interesting that while planning this space, the owners choose to take away the choice of a hot shower or better put, they took away the temperature choice, but keep an old clock radio and TV. Maybe they did create this space for people like me, which is fine, but I wonder who they did have in mind. I didn’t release minimalism included no shower temperature control.

We make choices all the time in our work about what to include, what is important, what we can live without. Sometimes we create user personas and user stories (more on this in the future) trying to understand our customers or our stakeholders and then we make choices. If we are clear on who our work is for, and I certainly hope we are, then we make choices based on this; if we are not clear, we confuse ourselves, our work, and our audience. And also, when we are clear, and someone talks about the lack of temperature control in the shower, we can say, thanks for the feedback, but we didn’t make this for you. And that’s ok.