Don Norman says that simplicity is highly overrated. Simplicity cannot win against lists with cool features.
Marketing rules – as it should, for a company that ignores marketing is a company soon out of business. Marketing experts know that purchase decisions are influenced by feature lists, even if the buyers realize they will probably never use most of the features. Even if the features confuse more than they help.
Yes, we want simplicity, but we don’t want to give up any of those cool features. Simplicity is highly overrated.
Buyers want cool features and more control, and they are ready to pay for it. But they are not ready to pay for simplicity. Joel Spolsky follows this up with similar opinion.
Simplicity Is A Perception
I think simplicity is a perception, a perception of the user that is affected by factors like expertise, skills and mindset. Most of the times the products that we buy are only the means, not the end in themselves. They are used in the process of achieving something. If achieving that something becomes difficult by using the product, it does not seem to be simple. The cause can be lack of expertise itself, but the blame is on the product. A desktop computer is one of the best examples where each individual will have his own idea of how simple it is.
Like Joel says, simplicity can be defined in many ways
If you’re using the term “simplicity” to refer to a product in which the user model corresponds closely to the program model, so the product is easy to use, fine, more power to ya. If you’re using the term “simplicity” to refer to a product with a spare, clean visual appearance, so the term is nothing more than an aesthetic description much in the same way you might describe Ralph Lauren clothes as “Southampton WASP,” fine, more power to ya. Minimalist aesthetics are quite hip these days. But if you think simplicity means “not very many features” or “does one thing and does it well,” then I applaud your integrity but you can’t go that far with a product that deliberately leaves features out.
Simplicity, Features, Needs and ROI
I think we lose the focus on needs or requirements a lot of times, while we focus on features. I, as a user or a developer, am scared of features. Features usually are full of buzzwords, are bullet points and usually there are a lot of them. The bullet points fail to show how my problems are solved, the buzzwords fail to explain to me what is the product about and a plethora of them hardly make me comfortable. And I am expected to understand the product just by reading the feature list. I would rather like a demo that I can try out, or an overview or case studies. A feature-drive selection can be misleading, software or not. In fact I think that a feature list can only be grasped by one who already knows the domain, not the layman. I have had this experience a lot when I have introduced my friends to blogging tools or blog clients.
I think we should not try too hard to be simple. Simplicity is about achieving the ROI in the easiest way. If we focus on that simplicity will be an automatic byproduct. If something is inherently complex, we will fail when we force to make it simple. In such cases things can get simpler only by understanding it.
A lot of times, especially in the software, complexity is introduced by assumptions. There is no need for something, but it is still included as a feature because of the assumptions made. Simplicity becomes difficult also when a product is targetted towards a wide range of users, and as mentioned earlier their perception of simplicity can vary over a much wider range.
Simplicity does not mean removing features or it does not mean a clean interface. Simplicity means solving the user’s problem with least effort for the user. A product should first mean to be functional and then simple. Lack of functionality cannot be justified by simplicity, and features should be justified by needs of the user.
