What are we basing our decisions on when declaring something an «edge case»?
And how does this fit with our understanding of risk and quality?

Whether we’re scoping an MVP or reimagining user journeys for a legacy system, our work of finding solutions may easily lead to a centering of the product in the stories we tell ourselves about our users. This narrowing of focus can implicitly idealize our view of people’s needs and circumstance, in ways that are not always helpful.

We take pride in relieving pain points - but don’t as easily envision the pain our products might introduce or amplify in people’s lives. There are some edge cases that cannot be ignored, because the consequences are too great. And there are some things that simply aren’t as far to the edge as we’d like to imagine.

We can roll back the code, or iterate the product – but we cannot roll back the consequences we cause in people’s lives along the way. By combining a risk based approach with compassion, we can learn how to make products and experiments that are safe to fail in the environment of real life.