Keep it simple: It’s really hard to be easy
[…]How about this scenario: You fly off to a vacation, renting a car at the airport. After you get going, you spend the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out how to turn on the windshield wipers, or the lights, or the air/conditioner.
The problem is that geeks design gadgets and normal people struggle to make them work. Too many gadgets are counter-intuitive. Why, for example, would you have to hit the “start” button to turn off a Windows XP computer? Or why, on many cell phones, do you push the “end” button to turn the darn thing on?
A Xerox engineer explained at least part of the problem when he said, “It’s really hard to be easy.”
From The Lompoc Record: The difficulty of being easy (via WebWord).
37Signals that I mentioned previously in this blog have a strong emphasis on keeping it simple, embracing agile principles.
Mark Hurst has a roundup — Simplicity gets its media moment (via 37Signals):
The cover story of Fast Company this month is “The Beauty of Simplicity,” featuring a quote from (past Gel speaker) Marissa Mayer: “Google is lke a Swiss Army knife, closed. It’s simple, you can slip it in your pocket, but it’s got the great doodad when you need it.” Since the article isn’t online (?!), here’s my interview of Marissa from three years ago, which contains some similar thoughts.
Technorati tags: usability simplicity 37signals
December 5th, 2005 at 16:07 (GMT-1)
(…)A Xerox engineer explained at least part of the problem when he said, “It’s really hard to be easy.” (…)
That hits the spot dead on. I So much agree with that statement.
Im in Deducta APS right now, and it is a very Web-statistics heavy function im in. Im certified in Webtrends, which is one of those systems engineers made (i think about 12 ppl in DK are in all) I use Clientstep, Netminers and TNS on a daily basis and know how to use about 12 other systems… And we are not just looking at benchmarking numbers, but actualy use that stuff to figure out how to make websites better.. At man it works…
But it also mean that what is common sense and basics to me, and what i dont even think about anymore, is breaking news to other in for example middle and top management.
Its cool to have the kind of knowledge, because it enables you to answer whatever question and solve whatever issue they might have, but it also prevents you from beeing able to communicate with them.
The words comming out of your mouth are english, but you could just as well be speaking chinise… And these are not stupid people, on the contrary.
To overcome this and actualy communicate on the level of other people is one of the biggest challanges im facing.. The good thing is that i know the fact that its a problem, and im trying to read up on buisiness psychology and educative methods in order to find a functioning solution..
But basicaly, it applies to everything. Where i work, we have had project with more or less all the big companies in Denmark. Most of the projects have been optimization cases where the output was well above 40% yeld in what ever Most Wanted Action or Goal the customer wanted. Some as much as 1400%.
But when it comes to adressing needs, and not “detaching” potential customers in the begining… man its hard. It frustrating to know that you make a big ROI for them, and improve things radicaly, but not beeing able to communicate it ….
People will tend to choose someone elses product, simpely because they understand it better… and that fault lies with you and you alone ..
My point is just, i think you need to take the problem to another level, and not say “ha ha, its fun customers are too stupid to use your product”… its you that dosnt communicate good enough….
..and then you better adress it otherwise you will be out of buisiness.
December 29th, 2010 at 15:08 (GMT-1)
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