Jason Fried: Less Is More
June 20th, 2006
Over at IT Conversations, they recently published a nice 12-minute podcast of Jason Fried entitled Less is More:
A fundamental notion in business is to outdo and go one better than the competition. Fried delves into the competitive advantage of doing less, suggesting that people start thinking about “under-doing” each other to beat the competition in this era of simple applications. He presents arguments against conventional business building practices and proposes scaling down on money, staff, and product features to make time more valued and productive.
Time management comes to the forefront as Fried outlines a time frame that revolves around the functional customer experience. His presentation accentuates the reality that, while in any business there are a million simple problems to solve, simplicity remains the key.
This is worth listening to, particularly where he’s talking about how he believes interfaces could be a lot simpler. I agree and think this is a natural progression from feature design, where we focus on having the best features, to experience design, where we look at having the best experience for the user.
June 21st, 2006 at 10:19 am
Does “good” experience design always equal less?
I agree with 37signals that most if not all sofware is feature packed for the sake of features and need simplification. But less is not always the answer is it? As Donald Norman suggests, we’ll be happy with our simple “less” experiences until someone comes along and suggests that “for our convienience” they have combined and converged our interfaces, web apps, devices, etc. The pendulum will swing back towards the feature packed, convenient side….that is, until we get fed up with complexity againand seek out simplicity.
In other words- a pendulum.
Instead of forcing the swing back towards simplicity (as 37signals advocates) should we not instead focus on reducing the swing of the pendulum? Create a balance of features and simplicity that is a give and take of experience *and* features.
To quote Norman:
“We are always caught in the bind of wanting our devices to be straightforward and simple, while simultaneously wanting them to do more and more things.”
We might never achieve any balance (as he suggests immediatly following that statement). I’ve gotten fed up with my software and paid for a Backpack account. It was a relief for awhile. Designed with simlicity in mind. Unfortantly- it’s not the same simplicity I had in mind.
So now I’m stuck between the overly simplified backpack, and the overly complex “everything else.”
So what do I conclude? I’m going to start my own company. Our motto is going to be “Less features than Microsoft, but a few more than 37Signals.”
I’m looking for VC funding as we speak.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:06 pm
I aggree. People who uses web design or IT projects don’t need over-simplified interface. Simplicity doesn’t mean feature-less design. Simplicity can be achived “training wheels” design method (Microsoft called it “ribbon” in their new Office design). Hide advanced feature so we can get our stuff done without going into deep stuff but be there when we need the big-boy stuff.