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.
As a developer I have in the past had to deal with things like program registration and licensing but in the end gave up primarily because it just wasn’t worth the hassle and the playing tag with people cracking the software. That said though developers still need to be able to eat and put a roof over their family’s head which means having to find ways to make their efforts pay some sort of dividend.
