A Netflix Design Principle: Simple Trumps Complete

Jared Spool

By Jared Spool

January 23rd, 2011

“Simple trumps complete” – a 5% feature (used by less than 5% of all users) is a distraction for all the other users, and is better removed, unless its really critical (a small number of users do need to cancel service, for example).

I have this mental model of particles of attention that a user brings, a finite quantity that they will spread around according to what catches their attention. I call them “attentrons”. An extra tab or button will attract a bunch of attentrons that are not then available to focus on other areas. So the tab had better be *better* than the competing areas of the site to avoid diluting the results, or it’s better off removed.

Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer of Netflix
from a comment to a question on Quora as to what Netflix A/B tests.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 23rd, 2011 at 8:47 am and is filed under Design, Design Principles . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “A Netflix Design Principle: Simple Trumps Complete”

  1. Netflix 5 percent rule | Lost in UX Says:
    January 27th, 2011 at 2:36 am

    [...] http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2011/01/23/netflix-design-principle-simple-trumps-complete/ [...]

  2. Pleasure and Pain » Recent Reads – 1/30/2011 Says:
    January 30th, 2011 at 3:28 am

    [...] A Netflix Design Principle: Simple Trumps Completevia @uie [...]

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