Software Made Simple

Following up on my last post, Simple is Easy, my next topic is “Simple is Hard”. As in “hard for you, the developer”.

To be blunt: it’s going to take a lot of work for you to create something that’s simple. You’ll spend significant time thinking and not actually writing any code. This can be difficult for a lot of developers. After all, they equate productivity with typing. But realistically you probably will spend more time thinking than coding.

When it comes to simplicity, your design matters. A lot. You can’t just bang out a solution, figuring it out as you’re coding. Sure, you’ll end up with something and it may even be useful. But it most certainly won’t be simple.

A really good reason to not spend a lot of time coding is so that you can be more flexible. If you come up with a new, better and simpler design, you’ll be more likely to throw away your old design if you didn’t spend many hours coding it up. It’s just a fact. We all get attached to the code we write.

Be simple. Your users will appreciate it.

For your users, simple means one thing: make it easy to use. This can mean a lot of things to different people but the key thing to keep in mind is that your software should be approachable.

Your users don’t want to read manuals or go to training in order to effectively use your software. They want to just figure it out as they use it. This means your software needs to respect them. It should be easy for them to learn how to use it. Most importantly, it should be easy for them to correct any mistakes they will make.

Because, rest assured, your users will make mistakes. When the user no longer fears making mistakes they’ll enjoy using your software. And then you’ll start getting feedback that says: “Your software is so easy to use. I love it!”. Trust me, you’ll enjoy that, too!

Simplicity is a popular topic these days. But other than being cool, what are some reasons you should put more effort into simplifying your software? Because simple sells. Here are some examples:

iPhone

Perhaps the best known case of taking something that was complex and providing a simple alternative. Nearly everyone has a cell phone. Nearly everyone hates their cell phone. Apple took a step back and created a phone that anyone can use. In fact, when they were first released we stopped at an AT&T store to check them out. My daughter, who was 5 years old at the time, was able to pick up the iPhone take pictures, play music and make a call without us showing her how. She certainly can’t do that on my Samsung cell phone.

Sure, Apple took a bit of flak for the iPhone not having all the features that some expected for a smart phone. But it had enough and the lack of features certainly didn’t hurt sales.

Sudoku

I love Sudoku. It’s really simple to learn. You can explain the rules in less than a minute. It became a phenomenon precisely because of this.

iPhoto

I’ve convinced more people to get a Mac by showing them iPhoto than any other reason. People love taking pictures. iPhoto makes it simple to manage your pictures. And it eliminates any fear of editing your pictures because you can always go back to the original with just a single click.

Time Machine

In Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple again took on something that people find too annoying and complex to bother with: backups. Obviously everyone understands the benefits of backups, but most people still didn’t do them. Now with Time Machine, you don’t have to worry about anything. Just plug in an external drive and OS X takes care of the rest. Sure, Time Machine doesn’t have every feature that a backup app could have, but it has enough and is easy. Thus people are using it. It is a major selling point for Leopard.

Wii

I particularly like this example. Nintendo took what many thought was quite a risk by releasing the Wii: a game system that was much less powerful than either the XBox360 or the Playstation 3. In the end, Nintendo was proven right. They reasoned that most people wanted to have a game system that was fun and approachable more than one that was incredibly realistic and complex. I would agree.

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