I love this photo – “Understanding how to use a remote is made easier by a friend” – as an example of the power of reduction to make something easier to understand and give people a better experience. Take away all the stuff people don’t need and suddenly instead of fumbling around feeling stupid, they easily start doing what they want.
Also, the instructions are written directly on the remotes. The friend didn’t write seperate notes on a piece of paper saying “press the up and down arrows on the slim remote to change volume”. Instead, the friend wrote directly on the remote: “Volume”. Similarly, seperate “help” files and manuals for software need to die. There are better alternatives such as inline prompts and making a design so obvious and activity-centered that people do not need help files.
”Like Thoreau and the band Devo, psychology professor Schwartz provides ample evidence that we are faced with far too many choices on a daily basis, providing an illusion of a multitude of options when few honestly different ones actually exist. The conclusions Schwartz draws will be familiar to anyone who has flipped through 900 eerily similar channels of cable television only to find that nothing good is on. Whether choosing a health-care plan, choosing a college class or even buying a pair of jeans, Schwartz, drawing extensively on his own work in the social sciences, shows that a bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us. We normally assume in America that more options (“easy fit” or “relaxed fit”?) will make us happier, but Schwartz shows the opposite is true, arguing that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being.”
This is Synap Software's blog on Marketing, Software Design, Small Business, Management, Technology, Productivity, and other topics of interest to new small businesses.
Scott Meade is the author and an entrepreneur, corporate refugee, father, husband, and small business owner living near Denver, CO. After a successful stint leading large, corporate IT efforts, Scott co-founded Synap Software to bring well-designed web apps to small businesses.
