
Defeating Feature Fatigue (2006) - kosei
https://hbr.org/2006/02/defeating-feature-fatigue
======
userbinator
13 years later and it seems we've gone too far in the opposite direction.
Dumbed-down, unconfigurable interfaces with no "depth" seem to be the norm for
new apps now.

~~~
tablet
I don't agree here. We have a renaissance of systems that provide depth for
creators:

\- Airtable

\- Notion

\- Coda

\- ...

~~~
TeMPOraL
Looking at their respective tours, they don't feel very deep either - they
smell like a few features layered in fat, and put inside a web app.

~~~
tablet
Dig deeper.

------
marcosdumay
One has to keep in mind the Microsoft Word paradox: 99% of the people have no
use for any single feature of yours, but when you have 600 of those removing
them means that every single one of your users will miss something and will
look into something that does it.

That of course doesn't mean that both it's perfectly fine to have a niche
product that perfectly solves a problem few people have, some features really
aren't used by anybody. It's just that things are not always simple.

~~~
empath75
Having a plug-in system like atom is much better than trying to account for
every possible use case.

~~~
marcosdumay
Well, mostly. But it completely fails when there is any social element to the
software (even exchanging save-files).

------
makapuf
Funny this article comes just before the iPhone revolution which puts
everything in your pocket and has swallowed the gps, radio, camera, iPod,
phone and pda in one single device.

~~~
fmajid
People forget just how much of a usability revolution the iPhone was compared
to the not-so-smartphones that preceded it.

~~~
z3t4
I think the iPhone gets too much credit then it deserves. I owned a smartphone
with Gps, wifi, full touch screen, apps, Windows, etc years before iPhone. It
was a growing market.

------
amelius
Solution: show only the main features and hide additional features under an
"advanced features" or "settings" button.

~~~
snazz
Then if you need those features on a regular basis, you have to make a lot
more clicks to access that hidden menu. I personally really like the Microsoft
menu paradigm where I can either click on the File, Edit, ... menus or press
Alt and then a memorized sequence of characters. It allows for discoverability
as well as efficiency.

The Emacs equivalent also works nice: press a memorized key binding for
something that you do frequently, or press M-x to type into an autocompleted
(and fuzzy searched, with the right packages) list of commands for some
particular functionality.

~~~
angleofrepose
Or, better yet, a UI builder accessible through that "advanced features" menu
that lets the user decide what is accessible and easy.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Or, in case of Emacs: just bind the M-x feature you're using to a key.

The overall principle is sound, IMO: present the "simpler" UI up-front to not
overwhelm newcomers, but have advanced features available _and_ a means to
bring them up to front of the UI, for repeat users.

------
TeMPOraL
I think the article, and the usual discussions, are missing the insight that
whether or not the features should be bundled together depends on whether the
features are completely orthogonal to each other, or whether they (excuse the
word) synergize well.

Why the mouse pad with clock, calculator and FM radio was a dumb idea? Because
each feature was orthogonal, and them being in a mouse pad actually reduced
utility. For optimal use, I want the clock be in visual range, FM radio be in
audio range and within arm's reach, the calculator is something I might want
to reposition or take with me when I get up, etc., while the mouse pad forces
a particular location on my desk. It's the "mouse pad" ingredient that breaks
this - as modern smartphones show, FM radio + clock + calculator together is a
good idea[0].

Compare that with complex and feature-full applications like Word, Excel,
Photoshop, or Blender. There, you may not use 90% of the features (everyone
uses different 10%, though), but they all work on the same "work piece", and
interact well with each other. As long as they're mostly out of the way when
you don't need them, they're fine in the same application - and splitting them
out would degrade each of them[1].

Compare that with Emacs - in particular its utility as mini IDE + TODO manager
+ dayplanner + better Jupyter + e-mail client + a bunch more of stuff, at the
same time. You could say all of these things should be their own applications,
and you'd be right. They sort of are, if you see Emacs as a Lisp runtime with
a text editor app bundled by default. The reason some people choose this combo
is because for text-UI applications, Emacs offers the level of integration
that's much superior to what regular operating systems give you. A bunch of
completely orthogonal features end up reinforcing each other - improvements to
IDE carry over to editing your e-mail, you can quickly glue together e-mail
with your TODO list, etc.

My point being, bundling features is bad when they interfere with each other;
it's OK if they complement each other; it's very much desirable if they
reinforce each other.

\--

[0] - For frequent use, hardware calculator with real buttons is better,
though.

[1] - Sort of. Power users appreciate tools like imagemagick to quickly do
some of the things you'd do in a bitmap editor, without having to start up a
larger environment. Or, more importantly, the ability to operations in batch
mode. But just because a power user might use imagemagick to batch-generate
thumbnails, doesn't mean Photoshop should lose the "resize image" function.

------
kosei
Love this line:

> Put simply, what looks attractive in prospect does not necessarily look good
> in practice. Consumers often become frustrated and dissatisfied with the
> very cornucopia of features they originally desired and chose. This explains
> a recent nationwide survey that found that after buying a high-tech product,
> 56% of consumers feel overwhelmed by its complexity.

------
dmitryminkovsky
I was just talking to my friend about how his dad, whose VHS/DVD player combo
broke and he wanted to get a new VHS/DVD combo. I asked why he wouldn't just
get two separate players. You can get better, cheaper separate players. His
dad just really wants the combo!

~~~
Pete_D
If I cared about VHS, I'd probably go for the combo too - separate players
means double the number of power outlets, video input cables, and remotes.

Bundling a VHS/DVD player together feels more sensible than bundling a TV into
a fridge, or a calculator into a mousepad, but I don't know if I could come up
with a principle behind why.

------
lapinot
Someone discovered unix philosophy. (1) do one thing and do it well; (2)
promote composition (write primitives, let people script). To add a
pessimistic tone tho, bloat is benefic because the more things you pack the
quicker one will break, leading the consumer to buy your upgrade. Also: mega-
apps favor vendor lock-in (the reciprocate also being true). Ok i just
realized that second piece of unix philosophy is deeply anti-monopolistic; too
bad the capitalistic game (especially the last XaaS plateform-capitalism
trend) incentivizes complete market domination. I'm amused to see how well
these guidelines can be framed in an anti-capitalistic ideology when the
people at bell labs who wrote them (or the journalists from hbr) probably
didn't think like that at all.

~~~
vegasdew
So you recommend carrying a Phone, Camera, GPS device, music player, laptop,
barometer, torch etc. instead of one Phone as long as all o/p in text.

~~~
lapinot
(1) i never talked about text mode (2) i never talked about smartphones, which
specifically occur in other threads. It's easy demolishing straw-men. Yet i
don't want a car with a screen, i fridge with a clock, a watch with a
microphone. I could go on for several pages. Btw are you serious with that
barometer?

