In most public clocks you don’t see a day/night indicator. Even though it’s not complex to implement.

Instead, it’s assumed that typically, 99.9% of the people gazing at this public clock already know whether it’s AM or PM. One day there might be a person who woke up from a coma in the middle of the street somehow and they might not be able to tell apart dawn from dusk. What are the odds?

This wasn’t actually an issue until you thought of it. And you didn’t think of it until you thought you could do it. And it suddenly became a “feature” that you should implement.

Yes, it’s a benefit. But is it really beneficial? Yes, you can do it. But should you?

How many derived indicators is your team working on adding to your product before checking whether they have the slightest impact on user satisfaction?

Do not confuse this with accessibility; the number of users benefitting from a feature is not the only metric to evaluate a feature. Accessibility is a must even if you don’t have a single user (yet) who needs it.

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The attached photo is from davidkleff.typepad.com/home/2017/04/the… post. It’s a nice read.