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Creating Passionate Users: Featuritis vs. the Happy User Peak

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on 2006-07-31 by wenxin

Less is more

on 2006-10-30 by jeeves

Creating Passionate Users:

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Featuritis vs. the Happy User Peak

Featuritis

Highlighted by eyalnow

Most of you here know that Don Norman talked about this forever in the classic The Design of Everyday Things, but why didn't the designers and manufacturers listen?

Highlighted by eyalnow

Ten years ago, if you'd told me I'd one day need a manual to use my car radio, that would have been inconceivable. All I want to do is find a frickin' radio station!

Highlighted by eyalnow

* Software that keeps adding feature upon feature until the simple things you used to do are no longer simple, and the whole thing feels overwhelming.

Highlighted by eyalnow

* Technical books that try to be "complete" but don't provide the focus and filtering and weighting the reader was hoping for.

Highlighted by eyalnow

This seems to happen most when the publisher/editor/author didn't want to commit with both feet to being a learning book vs. a reference book, and tried to do both. When I see marketing copy for a learning book that says, "And you'll refer to it again and again after you finish..." or, "You'll want to keep it close even when you're done." red flags start flying. Reference books are for referring to (like the wonderful Nutshell series). Learning books are for reading once, maybe with some extra review, and a refresh if you don't use what you learned right away, but that's about it.

Highlighted by eyalnow

So again, why does this happen so often?

Our guess is fear.

Fear of being perceived as having fewer features than your competitors. Fear that you won't be viewed as complete. Fear that people are making purchase decisions off of a checklist, and that he who has the most features wins (or at the least, that he who has the fewest features definitely loses). Fear of losing key clients who say, "If you don't add THIS... I'll have to go elsewhere."

Highlighted by eyalnow

Screw 'em. We believe that those providing the products and services that give the most "I Rule" experiences, without tipping too far over the Happy User Peak, will be the most successful. (Obviously there are a ton of exceptions, and yes of course I'm overgeneralizing.)

Highlighted by eyalnow

What if instead of adding new features, a company concentrated on making the service or product much easier to use? Or making it much easier to access the advanced features it already has, but that few can master?

Highlighted by eyalnow

In a lot of markets, it's gotten so bad out there that simply being usable is enough to make a product truly remarkable.

Highlighted by eyalnow

Give users what they actually want, not what they say they want. And whatever you do, don't give them new features just because your competitors have them!

Highlighted by eyalnow

Our readers put their trust in us to work hard at finding and focusing on what really matters, and brutally cutting the cognitive overload that comes with the rest, and we try not to let them down.

Highlighted by eyalnow

Be brave. And besides, continuing to pile on new features eventually leads to an endless downhill slide toward poor usability and maintenance. A negative spiral of incremental improvements. Fighting and clawing for market share by competing solely on features is an unhealthy, unsustainable, and unfun way to live.

Highlighted by eyalnow

Be the "I Rule" product, not the "This thing I bought does everything, but I suck!" product.

And I'll be your happy user : )

Posted by Kathy Sierra on June 12, 2005 | Permalink

Highlighted by eyalnow

* Stereos (or other consumer electronics and appliances) that use "modal" controls so that you cannot obviously figure out how to make it do the most BASIC FRICKIN' THINGS ; (

Highlighted by eyalnow