5 Day Madness #1
by Andrew Crow
This week’s topic for discussion is:
Is “simplicity” a customer-centric philosophy? Does more information on your company’s website help the customer, or does it only serve the needs of the marketing department? When does the value of that information to the customer reach a point of diminishing returns?
Idea suggested by Daniel Szuc. Background and purpose of this series.
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March 27th, 2007 at 4:22 am
Well, it’s allways nice to start a discussion at the far ends, so I’m gonna say “Yes”. But doesn’t this deal with actual products as well?
People have lots to deal with these days and overly complex DVD players don’t help. Also, piling on features as a marketing tool tends to harm the customer experience in the end. Focussing the design of products on a small, coherent set of functionalities can make peoples lives a lot easier.
March 27th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Yes - simplicity is a customer-centric philosophy. The unfortunate aspect is that simplicity is not easy to deliver when building software, websites, or physical products. It is much easier to slap something together based on the assumptions and expert knowledge of the creator rather than really thinking things through from the user perspective. That extra work and effort is not the norm in most design processes. Even when companies/designers try, it is just plain difficult most times.
What makes it more difficult is that most products are evaluated based on the “length of feature list” - people have been trained by advertising/marketing/experience that more is better - so they want more. It is rare that a magnificently designed product has all the right capabilities and is simple. Those products are iconic ‘winners’ in the market.
On your 2nd two seed questions - it isn’t about more information on the website, it is about the accessibility and the easy-to-find nature of that information that is the value. Really no diminishing returns on having more information on the website - someone in the long tail will want just that last nugget of info you post. The trick is to make it easy for the long tail to find - and not complex for the more mainstream audience to find the ‘common’ information.
March 27th, 2007 at 8:30 am
I agree with Bob’s comments. It can be a struggle in product design to champion the voice of the consumer over featuritis; which can come from many different perspectives, not just marketing - biz dev, engineering, and even [gasp] design).
My favorite example of simplicity is the out-of-box experience design by Apple vs. Microsoft packaging. There’s a funny example/spoof for the iPod box - if it was designed by Microsoft - that went around sometime last year. http://youtube.com/watch?v=aeXAcwriid0 To me it truly speaks to the struggles we face in conveying the need for experience design (part of which includes a customer-centric philosophy). After watching the video, which box would you be drawn at the store?
March 27th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Simplicity is just one approach to a customer-centeric philosophy. There are, of course, expert systems in which the customer needs or emotionally desires greater complexity. For example, both Schwab and E*Trade both have separate intense, complex interfaces for their high-end traders. You can seem the same simple versus complex strategies in home stereos or cars.
I’ve also seen situations where the marketing person is essentially arguing for a “simple” solution and the UX person is asking for a more complex one. For example, the marketing representative my argue, “let’s just show our banking product’s APR, have a giant ‘APPLY NOW’ button.” But the UX representative may argue for a more nuanced approach that supports different points in the buying process or different types of buyers.
Simple often leads to the right solution for customers and businesses, but not in every situation.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
In essence? I’m in support of Brandon’s comment that simplicity can be user-centric, but is not user-centric by definition. And I think we wander into the weeds when we use “simplicity” to mean “simple.”
Maybe a couple definitions are appropriate here.
sim·plic·i·ty (sĭm-plĭs’ĭ-tē) n.,
1. The property, condition, or quality of being simple or uncombined.
sim·ple (sĭm’pəl) adj.
1. Having or composed of only one thing, element, or part. See synonyms at pure.
2. Not involved or complicated; easy: a simple task. See synonyms at easy.
So 2 major concepts: pure and easy. Are these customer-centric philosophies?
Does pure=customer-centric? I’d say no. And what’s more, I think simplicity has the connotation of pure: one thing, elemental, honed to it’s most singular form. But honing something down to the core elements can reduce complexitities that provide functionality and control.
And sometimes simplicity for designs’ sake can obscure basic features. For example, the projector remote that comes stock with any new MacBook…simplicity for sure. But just try to figure out how to replace the battery.
Does easy=customer-centric? I’d say absolutely. “Make it easy” begs the question “for whom?” and directly ties it to an audience or participant.
So, back to Brandon’s comment: for the product manager, the “buy me” message is the simple answer. For a customer looking to evaluate a buying decision across multiple products, simple looks very different. And for a financial expert who knows the terms, products and nuance, too simple just doesn’t cut it.
March 30th, 2007 at 1:27 am
A customer-centric philosophy should be clear on how to create values for customers (i.e. ease of use, meeting user goals, attractive). I feel simplicity is rather vague and subjective. Therefore, I feel simplicity is more of design philosophy, or style. It encapsulates and communicates quality (minimalist, purity, plain, single function, etc) but it does not always translate into value for customers.