I'm a Simpleton
I am no slow learner. I do not fear complexity. I do not fear change. I am not a luddite.
Yet when I use your software, I am a simpleton.
I used to want to toy around and play with new software. But now my patience is thin, I am not happy to be using a new application. I do not eagerly await the rewards of new paradigms. I do not wish to learn new ways of thinking about how I interact with browsers, phones or email.
I have enough complexity. I have enough things to learn. I have skills I use professionally that I know need honing, that need developing, that need training. At any time, I have many new things to learn and problems to solve and a finite amount of time and mental energy I can spend on it. I'm picky about the stuff I'm going to expend mental energy learning and committing to memory.
Or maybe I'm just lazy.
Either way, when I use your software, I am a simpleton.
I don't want to go through the tutorial, I won't read the documentation, I probably won't even read your error messages. Unless I have some powerful motivation to continue, I give up quickly and walk away.
This is the problem all product makers face. I don't know if it's worse now than it was in the past, but it really seems like we are in complexity and gadget overload like never before. Smart or not, computer idiot or savant, every new feature people learn incurs a mental load, and far fewer people are willing to meet that load than you think. I'm not the only simpleton out there.
Posted February 28, 2007 12:28 PM
Comments
My goodness someone stole my purple crayon and used it to tell what is in my head. I want to be stimulated and engaged, I don't want to feel like a simpleton in the process, I have enough challenges all ready. I am java-ed,api-ed, and blued screened to boot and that's no pun.
D Robertsom, February 28, 2007 10:01 PM
I hear what you're saying and I have to agree up to a point. May it be that you are having an off day or two or three? There,there, do you feel better?
susan helen rattray, March 1, 2007 2:24 AM
Feel your pain. I have started a blog where I will be addressing the complexity in many aspects of tech; especially (gasp) entreprisey technology, which my field. I have lost count of the number of meetings I have attended where I have argued not to force the customer to use the latest version of the JVM in order to use a website.
http://simplicity-works-everytime.blogspot.com/2007/02/why-simplicity-works-everytime.html
http://simplicity-works-everytime.blogspot.com/
Arun Jacob, March 1, 2007 8:15 AM
That's what makes creating applications so fun - tinkering and toying until you find the interface that is intuitive and easy for the majority of users.
The best GUI is one the users barely realize they are using.
Shamus, March 1, 2007 8:20 AM
I sense an Apple PowerBook in your near future. Good for you. Come to the Dark Side, Luke.
Don, March 3, 2007 10:24 AM
Simplicity really rocks.
Girish, April 2, 2007 6:23 AM
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