
Users don’t want rich - toni
http://neilmiddleton.com/2009/09/30/users-dont-want-rich/
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grahamr
I think the subtle point here is that users don't want bloated applications
but 1) They will vocally advocate for additional features that meet their
specific needs 2) They will buy upgrades (particularly of boxed software)
based primarily on new/additional features

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joe_the_user
The nice thing is that this problem of desktop applications hasn't actually
translated directly to the web. On the web, doing one thing well is much more
valued on than on the desktop.

I suspect that this is because more users understand and feel comfortable with
the web than feel comfortable with the non-browser desktop.

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InclinedPlane
I think the key aspect is that adoption of web software is easy, and most web
software (e.g. gmail, google maps, flickr, twitter) is free, or at least has a
reasonably useful no-cost usage tier. This may contribute to users feeling
they are less locked in to a single application, more able to switch to a
competitor if need be, and more able to use additional software to provide
additional functionality (e.g. twitpic + twitter).

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jjs
The author appears to conflate feature-bloat with "rich" web UI platforms.
This doesn't have to be the case.

When I'm making something using Flash, AJAX, scripted SVG, or <canvas>, I like
to think in terms of which UI elements can be simplified or eliminated by
having a more expressive interface.

For example, AJAXified controls can eliminate the need for a "save" button in
some forms, drag-and-drop can simplify moving and reordering operations,
scripted SVG can bring sanity to working with tree-structured data, AJAX
polling or Comet streaming can eliminate UI actions like page reload or
manually checking for updates, etc.

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chrischen
I bet most of the MS Word _features_ could be replaced by a single scriptable
extension feature.

It's a little more complicated than to just keep it simple. Spamming a bunch
of simple features is bad, but more complicated (high quality non trivial)
features is almost never bad. So basically anything that most people can't
script themselves, like a face detection feature or something like that, would
be a great feature to implement, whereas something like linking Entourage with
iCal (which is horribly implemented in Entourage) is a shitty feature. A bunch
of these simple things which offer little value and must be customized for
individual uses anyways may as well be implemented as _extensions_ instead of
features.

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henning
MS Word already has a comprehensive scripting extension system, it's called
Visual Basic for Applications. It's been in there since at least Office 2000.
It gives you programmatic access to nearly everything in the application
you're scripting.

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chrischen
Ok I didn't know that. So to rephrase my comment: I bet most of those features
in MS word can be replaced by it's scripting system.

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revorad
Most Word users don't know scripting and have no desire to learn scripting. Or
they would be using LaTeX.

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chrischen
Yes, but the community can develop the extensions for various purposes instead
of Microsoft developing everything. That's what I meant. Obviously most word
users don't know scripting and don't care to learn.

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yannis
Users do not generally want less. It is not unusual in Corporations to
actually compare features before a buying decision and there is always a
strong perception that the software has more value if it has more features. It
also ensures that your competition always stays a few months behind you.

B U T, users want simpler interfaces and quick ways to find something. So KISS
the UI, but complexify the rest may be one good proposition.

If you consider library API's as a UI for coders here is an example from
jQuery:

    
    
       $().css(data);
    

NOT

    
    
      $().getCss(data);
      $().setCss(data);
    

More complexity in the library, less complexity in the API's UI.

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petenixey
Good article though it's worth appreciating that leaving things out is not
just about adding less it's about knowing more.

You need to know which tools your users _actually want_ to use. You need to
know which order they use them in and when to present them. You need to
understand what people are doing with your app and how to strip everything out
except what they want next.

Focussing on a minimal set of features lets you focus on a minimal set of
customers. Instead of half-serving two ill-defined groups with a chimera
application you service one well defined group with an application of clear
value. Saying "no" to the ill-defined group isn't always easy though.

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dstorrs
Neil's point is basically "KISS", which is excellent advice. I wish he had
also talked about the other half of the statement, though: figuring out what
users DO want. In my experience, the tricky part is not keeping it simple,
it's _knowing what to build_. Really effective advice on how to determine what
people really want...now that's something I would love to read.

~~~
yannis
To determine really what people want you need to be the proto USER, you need
to understand the needs in solving a problem and what the outcome should be.

Great software ideas that stood the test of time were mostly developed by
someone that wanted to solve his own problem first.

I would start with Knuth and TeX. He wanted to solve his own typesetting
problems. I will leave it for others to add more examples (Lotus? AutoCad?
HTML?)

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extension
Spolsky said it best: the average user will only use 5% of the features in
your do-all app, but each user will use a _different_ 5%.

Twitter doesn't count because they didn't solve an existing problem, they
invented something new that everyone found useful. Apple doesn't count because
they target the small niche that does things the Apple way. They don't try to
appeal to everyone, unless they are manufacturing appeal like Twitter.

The web doesn't count because it's easy and cheap to try out new web apps and
to use many of them at once. You don't have to shell out for one vendor to
solve all your problems. It's just too bad that web apps can't really talk to
each other.

You have to give Microsoft credit for embracing diversity. They try to solve
everyone's problem and they pay the price in complexity. Perhaps a more
connected web or a more responsive open source ecosystem can replace the MS
mega-app, perhaps not. There is a lot of dirty work out there that nobody else
wants to do.

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dwynings
It's easy to get caught up in adding features with the belief that adding X or
Y feature will help you get a little bit more market share. When in reality,
you should be focusing on doing something simple, but doing it really well.

Barry Schwartz (The Paradox of Choice) puts it best: "[as people are given
more and more options they] become overloaded…. Choice no longer liberates,
but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize."

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hernan7
I found that especially on enterprise software, being web-based limits the
amount of damage a mediocre programmer can do. Of course there are myriad ways
of messing up the web experience, but native apps have all the OS resources at
their disposal to make your life miserable. And when the OS is Windows,
well...

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motters
There's something to be said for a simple Google-esque user interface, but I
can't think of any time when a user has contaced me and said something like:

"I think the software you've written is perfect - it doesn't need any more
changes and it does absolutely everything I want it to do".

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rooshdi
Less is more, get it done and out the door.....

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Ardit20
" Assuming you’re not one of the 10% of people who “power-use” Word"

Where did that statistic come from? Word is essential for students and most of
its features, especially the word count, the thesaurus, the referencing for
the footnotes, the formatting of paragraphs, the spell checker, I can't
actually think of anything that I do not need and even if I did not, word
loads quickly, its interface is somewhat simple and kind of intuitive, so why
should I care about some hidden feature which I do not use.

Doctors use word, dentists, lawyers most certainly, every office in the
country uses word, every school, really only my grandma does not need word!

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rooshdi
I think the author was actually emphasizing the point you made about "why
should I care about some hidden feature which I do not use". The 10% of power
users he was referring to are the ones who use far more than the features you
stated. Those features you stated are actually general features which most
people use, but these are just a small subset of the vast feature set that is
available for users within Word. Most users don't even know these "extra"
features exist, let alone what they do and how to use them.

