1Percenter

Are we getting stupid? François Joseph de Kermadec

Big Beautiful, Dumb Whitespace

Odeo goes simple and only insults us a little 33inc.com

[Big buttons] implicitly say, “Hey, you’re too foolish to choose what to do next, so I’ve put a really big button right here just for you.” Cameron Moll

Most of these comments are a reaction to the recent Odeo redesign which, if you agree with the general consensus, does have some problems¹. But behind these comments is a sentiment that I often hear expressed in the software design community that I do not agree with: if you design something to be simple to use, you are designing it for simple people.

While I agree that the knowledge level of your audience does affect how complex you can make your software, I do not agree that it is a factor in how simple you should make your software. The answer to how simple should you make your product is always the same: as simple as possible.

There is no inherent value to complexity. It can lead to advantages, by allowing more features and greater flexibility, but new features and greater flexibility only become advantages if your users take advantage of them. Simplicity, on the other hand, does have inherent value. It reduces how long your interface takes to learn and use. Therefore, the comparison between the benefits of simplicity and complexity is between features and flexibility that may or may not become advantages to your users and immediate guaranteed benefit to all of your users.

The following factors should be considered when deciding whether to increase the complexity of your software by adding new features:

1. A percentage of your users will use the new feature, for most of these users, the value of your software will be increased by adding the new feature.
2. A percentage of users will not use the new feature, for every single one of these users, the value of your software will be reduced by adding the new feature.

In some cases, it is a no brainer. If 98% of your users will take advantage of a new feature then it should usually be added. The amount of value gained by adding a new feature that most of your users will use almost always trumps the value of leaving that feature out to preserve simplicity. But some decisions aren’t so easy, what if only 30% of your users will use a feature? Do you increase the value of your software for 30% of your users only to reduce its value for the other 70% What about 55%?

These are hard questions to answer. Every feature adds different amounts of value and complexity. But simplicity’s inherent value means your tendency should always be to lean in that direction. Note that I never mentioned the intelligence of your users as a factor in determining how complex you should make your software. That is because a far better question than “how many users can handle the new feature?” is “how many users will use the new feature?”

Finally, a counter to the stance “if you design something simple to use, you are designing for simple people.” You don’t create simple designs because people can’t figure out your product otherwise, you create them so that people don’t have to figure your product out.

1. I took a close look at the Odeo redesign while I was writing this post, and I now believe that this “redesign” is really Odeo promoting their “create recordings from your browser- or your phone” feature. This is a very interesting feature that lowers the high barrier of entry to recording your own audio. I suspect they are making a trade-off, reducing the visibility of the audio content available to download, in order to increase the number of users producing audio content on Odeo. ↑