{"id":9519,"date":"2024-07-05T18:23:32","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T22:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/?p=9519"},"modified":"2024-07-11T22:28:08","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T02:28:08","slug":"when-more-is-less-david-pogue-on-the-pitfalls-of-feature-creep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/when-more-is-less-david-pogue-on-the-pitfalls-of-feature-creep\/","title":{"rendered":"When More is Less: David Pogue on the Pitfalls of Feature Creep"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I really love David Pogue. He is a brilliant Renaissance man who talks about technology but from a very cultivated point of view. I don\u2019t just say that because he went to Yale. I always enjoy the way he makes technology accessible and engaging, offering insights that resonate with both tech enthusiasts and everyday users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In this segment, he talked about design<\/a>. He started with the fact that most things have too many functions for what they do. He highlighted how modern devices, from phones to appliances, are often overloaded with features that most users don\u2019t need or use, leading to unnecessary complexity and frustration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manufacturers often tout the quantity of functions above their quality. Often they’re not needed at all. This focus on feature count rather than usability can make products seem more impressive on paper but often results in a horrible user experience. As Jakob Nielsen pointed out, true simplicity requires thoughtful design and prioritizing the user’s needs over a long list of features. Without this focus, products become cumbersome and frustrating to use, ultimately failing to meet the practical needs of their users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it\u2019s really hard to limit functionality. When Microsoft tried to create a stripped-down version of Microsoft Word called Microsoft Write, it failed. That\u2019s because everyone has a small set of features that they really need. Think about trying to remove the word count feature<\/a>. No one really cares about word count. But if you do, every reviewer will mention it because professional writers really care about the word count feature. This example shows how even seemingly minor features can be crucial for certain users, making simplification a challenging task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simplicity is a really hard to achieve. One of my colleagues asked me, \u201cIs simplicity the most important goal of any customer?\u201d She thought that the answer was an obvious \u201cYes,\u201d but it\u2019s often not. First of all, the question is \u201cSimplicity for who?\u201d There are often many different stakeholders involved, and they have different goals. For example, executives might prioritize operational simplicity to reduce costs, developers might seek coding simplicity to facilitate updates and debugging, and the end-users just want the simplicity of use, allowing them to accomplish their goals with minimal hassle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My favorite example of simplicity gone awry was the release of BMW\u2019s iDrive. Customers complained of having too many knobs and dials, so BMW released an interface with just one multifunction joystick. People hated it because, despite its simple appearance, it was actually more complicated to operate. Eliminating dedicated buttons required users to memorize complex sequences for basic tasks, and the lack of tactile feedback led to a more cumbersome and less intuitive interface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To close the segment, we got two bits of advice from Jakob Nielsen: First, you shouldn’t feel like a techno loser; it\u2019s not your fault. It\u2019s the designer\u2019s fault for making it complicated because it doesn\u2019t have to be. And second, don\u2019t be seduced by the promise of a toothbrush that can do 20 things when you only need it to do one. Go for simplicity, buy simplicity, and your life will be happier. Also, focus on something that does the thing you actually need to do really well, rather than the 19 other things you don’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I really love David Pogue. He is a brilliant Renaissance man who talks about technology but from a very cultivated point of view. I don\u2019t just say that because he went to Yale. I always enjoy the way he makes technology accessible and engaging, offering insights that resonate with both tech enthusiasts and everyday users.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[96,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8wCkz-2tx","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":344,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/how-cell-phones-cause-car-crashes-and-can-also-save-lives\/","url_meta":{"origin":9519,"position":0},"title":"How Cell Phones Cause Car Crashes (And Can Also Save Lives)","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"March 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Cell Phones Make You A Worse Driver -- Taking Many Lives Talking on the phone is dangerous. The New York Times wrote a great series of \u00a0articles called Driven to\u00a0Distraction\u00a0to explain the science behind\u00a0this. Basically, your brain keeps saying \"Why do you keep looking at the road? We're having a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ideas"","block_context":{"text":"Ideas","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/ideas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4284,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/your-product-will-never-be-simple-enough\/","url_meta":{"origin":9519,"position":1},"title":"Your Product Will Never Be Simple Enough","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"July 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In a recent article,\u00a0David Pogue wrote that there is no core curriculum for people to understand technology. People often ask him \"obvious\" questions about technology that they never learned. That's probably why he wrote his\u00a0missing manual series. We're all familiar with the problems of complex technology that we can never\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Product Management"","block_context":{"text":"Product Management","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/product-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4288,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/future-of-tv\/","url_meta":{"origin":9519,"position":2},"title":"Future of TV","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"March 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"2010 was the year that TV officially married the Internet. Actually this was the year that the Internet proposed and TV ran off into the hills. This wasn't the first year that the Internet and TV have been dating. There have been internet enabled TVs (IP TV's) for many years.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Product Management"","block_context":{"text":"Product Management","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/product-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1097,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/how-i-re-built-my-favorite-t-shirt\/","url_meta":{"origin":9519,"position":3},"title":"How I (Re-)Built My Favorite T-Shirt","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"June 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Read in the voice of the Mission Impossible announcer: This t-shirt was originally created as a protest against US Export laws. Until 2000, US export law considered the computer code on the shirt as a \"munition\u201d that should not be exported from the United States or shown to a foreign\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fun Stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Fun Stuff","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/fun-stuff\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/RSA-Dolphin.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9718,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/the-one-man-who-does-not-want-his-company-to-be-a-tech-company\/","url_meta":{"origin":9519,"position":4},"title":"The One Man Who Does NOT Want His Company to Be a Tech Company","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"August 9, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"In every industry, companies want to be tech companies. Citibank loves quoting John Reed, CEO from the 1990s who said, \u201cCitibank is not a bank with technology. It\u2019s a technology company with a banking license.\u201d Even McDonald\u2019s and Chipotle are now saying they\u2019re technology companies. Technology companies are cool. Technology\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Designer-7.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1007,"url":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/smart-audio\/","url_meta":{"origin":9519,"position":5},"title":"Smart Audio is Here to Stay: Some Takeaways from NPR’s Smart Audio Report","author":"Robert Schlaff","date":"April 5, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"NPR and Edison\u00a0Research have been putting together The Smart Audio Report. The study, presented at\u00a0CES in January,\u00a0gives a good look into how quickly smart speakers like Alexa and Google Home are entering the home: It's growing fast:\u00a016% of Americans have a smart speaker\u00a0\u2212\u00a0128% growth\u00a0since January 2017 Usage is growing over\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Product Management"","block_context":{"text":"Product Management","link":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/category\/product-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Screen-Shot-2018-04-04-at-9.08.41-PM-1024x483.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Screen-Shot-2018-04-04-at-9.08.41-PM-1024x483.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Screen-Shot-2018-04-04-at-9.08.41-PM-1024x483.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9521,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9519\/revisions\/9521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schlaff.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}