15
Feb

It’s all in the simplicity

Posted by Steven Hodson in Friday, February 15th 2008      

Simplicity personified Both Michael Masnick [Techdirt] and Rob Hyndman posted today about the big discussion going on at the Mobile World Congress where they were trying to understand the success of the iPhone. With ideas to copy the success ranging from manipulating users in how their mobile platform experience was to exploring the neural networks to navigate a mobile phone interface.

And these are supposedly smart people that are running multi-billion dollar corporations and they don’t get it at all. It is just like Mike said in his post:

And that, of course, is exactly why no other company designed the iPhone before Apple. They’re trying to over-think things and figure out how to manipulate users, rather than sitting back and saying “how can we build something cool that people like that doesn’t suck the way existing phones do?”

The thing is that this can equally apply to our everyday software we use. If there is one thing that Web 2.0 browser applications and micro-networks like Twitter have taught us is that it is all in the simplicity. Yes you can overboard but the general concept of basic simple to use interfaces - regardless of the platform you are designing for - is what makes the users happy and keeps them coming back.

The moment you start complicating the user experience with all kinds of options or make the user have to work at being able to easily use the application you will eventually lose that user to a platform that gets it.

That is a big problem with desktop applications and one reason why web apps are kicking their butt for the average user. Developers for the desktop are like the mobile phone executive - they’re over thinking the process of how their application can easily be used - or they go to the other extreme and don’t care how that experience is going to be because in their mind their way is the write way.

As long as developers of desktop applications keep on thinking that everything including the kitchen sink needs to be thrown into an application; or that its features require the user to drill down through myriad levels to access, then they are going to continue to keep losing their market to browser applications.

Simplicity isn’t just something to dismiss with the wave of the hand. It should be the mantra of every software developer especially if they want to reach the regular user. This is what Apple got with the iPhone - simplicity will always win when it comes to real users.

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under: Apple, Software    

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    I'm a real user, but simplicity doesn't win with me. The iPhone is too simple to properly utilize an Exchange server, for one example. It's simply locked down to one provider and only certain apps, which makes other folks go through not-so-simple steps to open it up (although I heard that this and fixing it after Apple's updates kill your phone has been simplified). There simply won't be a day when a screen full of pretty icons is my chosen UI, but I will respect simple people's rights to have that.

    If I preferred simplicity, I wouldn't prefer TwitBox, but it's the additional features I find attractive. It does more. It may be telling that I prefer a standard transmission. Sure, it complicates my driving experience, but I like the fact that it simplifies things for my mechanics (and, hopefully, my wallet, which Leave, me free to buy complicated, but fun technology).
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    I've read you comment a few times just so I could offer the flipside point of view because you do have some valid points. I would suggest though that the iPhone was never intended - currently anyway - for the scenario that you use. Even from day one the iPhone was been geared to the general consumer market. They have never hidden that fact - if anything they have done everything possible to make it quite clear.

    So the moment you suggest that the "law of simplicity" doesn't work for you just because the iPhone won't perform the functions (simple or complex) that are beyond its intended scope only shows that you are one step to the side of a real user. You have specialized needs - being able to connect to an Exchange server - the consumer market the the iPhone is targeted for doesn't.

    I am glad you prefer to use TwitBox and that it has the extra functions available in it hat make using it more productive for you. That said I wonder what your opinion will be of the next version I am working on that I believe simplifies the UI even more than it already but will also have - with the inital release and follow up releases - have more and easier to access function.

    The perfect ideal of simplicity won't always mean a bare bones interface - it will mean though an interface that makes it incredibly easy for the user to access all the myriad of features that the developer adds in. How that is done is totally the responsibility of the developer and it must be done in such a way that the user doesn't know - nor need to know - the complexity under those simple interfaces.

    thanks for the input - I appreciate it

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