--- title: Mistaking making for the thing you've made | daily.dev description: Development metrics like commit counts, team size, hours worked, or development speed don't inherently reflect product quality. What matters is the actual user... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/mistaking-making-for-the-thing-you-ve-made-yghb73nfm twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Mistaking making for the thing you've made | daily.dev og:description: Development metrics like commit counts, team size, hours worked, or development speed don't inherently reflect product quality. What matters is the actual user... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/mistaking-making-for-the-thing-you-ve-made-yghb73nfm og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/yghB73NfM.png og:image:alt: Mistaking making for the thing you've made og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Mistaking making for the thing you've made **[Jason Fried](https://daily.dev/sources/jasonfried)** · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Development metrics like commit counts, team size, hours worked, or development speed don't inherently reflect product quality. What matters is the actual user experience — fit, clarity, usability, utility, and performance. Confusing the process of making something with the thing itself is like judging a restaurant by kitchen operations rather than the meal. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [How To Measure Developer Productivity?](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-measure-developer-productivity--0wzq4dgre) · Itamar Gilad · 94 upvotes · 18 comments - [What You Measure](https://daily.dev/posts/what-you-measure-5j5nzazyc) · The Daily WTF · 2 upvotes · 1 comments - [Why we should stop talking performance metrics to Business Leaders](https://daily.dev/posts/why-we-should-stop-talking-performance-metrics-to-business-leaders-sbpvm3nxl) · Web Performance Calendar · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/mistaking-making-for-the-thing-you-ve-made-yghb73nfm) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Mistaking making for the thing you've made","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/mistaking-making-for-the-thing-you-ve-made-yghb73nfm","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/mistaking-making-for-the-thing-you-ve-made-yghb73nfm"},"datePublished":"2026-07-24T17:16:25.492Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T20:54:57.410Z","description":"Development metrics like commit counts, team size, hours worked, or development speed don't inherently reflect product quality. 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