I attended the AIIM keynote this morning by David Pogue (NY Times columnist) and Matt
Glotzbach (Google). David talked for the first half hour; Matt talked for the second.
Matt's presentation, delivered under the guise of
talking about "The Power of Simplicity," was actually a 30-minute ad for Google: "Let me show you e-mail in Google Apps.... This is an example of Google Spreadsheets.... Here's what Google Sites looks like...." Enough said.
In contrast, David Pogue actually took the assignment seriously: he talked about
simplicity and referenced a variety of products in doing so.
He started off noting that users get easily confused. He talked about spending a day with Apple Tech Support and getting listen in on some of their conversations with customers. David noted, "You know when they say, 'This conversation may be recorded for quality assurance purposes,'--trust me, that's not why they do it. They do it so they can take the funny bits, burn them to a CD, and then play them at parties." David listened in on a conversation where a woman complained about her mouse squeaking too much. "Really?" said the CSR. "I've never heard that complaint before. What are you doing?" "Well, I'm taking the mouse and dragging it across the screen--and it makes this really awful sound." (As David's telling this story, everyone in the audience is thinking, "Now there's a winner..."). Then there was the fellow who was getting exasperated because his computer was still just sitting there doing nothing even though he kept typing "11." "Why are you typing 11?" asked the mystified CSR. "Well, because the message on the screen is telling me, 'Error type 11.'" (Once again, everyone in the audience is thinking, "Ooo, another winner...").
Given this level of misunderstanding, David said having products that are easier to use is a must. He said it was the iPod that started The Cult of Simplicity and began to stem the tide of feature bloat.
His advice to users was,
He started off noting that users get easily confused. He talked about spending a day with Apple Tech Support and getting listen in on some of their conversations with customers. David noted, "You know when they say, 'This conversation may be recorded for quality assurance purposes,'--trust me, that's not why they do it. They do it so they can take the funny bits, burn them to a CD, and then play them at parties." David listened in on a conversation where a woman complained about her mouse squeaking too much. "Really?" said the CSR. "I've never heard that complaint before. What are you doing?" "Well, I'm taking the mouse and dragging it across the screen--and it makes this really awful sound." (As David's telling this story, everyone in the audience is thinking, "Now there's a winner..."). Then there was the fellow who was getting exasperated because his computer was still just sitting there doing nothing even though he kept typing "11." "Why are you typing 11?" asked the mystified CSR. "Well, because the message on the screen is telling me, 'Error type 11.'" (Once again, everyone in the audience is thinking, "Ooo, another winner...").
Given this level of misunderstanding, David said having products that are easier to use is a must. He said it was the iPod that started The Cult of Simplicity and began to stem the tide of feature bloat.
His advice to users was,
-
If it doesn't work, it's not you.
-
Be aware of good and bad design.
For designers, he recommended:
- Sweat the details
- Count taps (a reference to Palm device design, where three was the maximum number of taps allowed to complete a task)
- It's not what to add, it's what to leave out
- Simplicity sells
To buttress the idea of simplicity sells," he showed off his MacBook Air (3/4" thick, 3 pounds), and noted that when he opened it up on the plane ride from Florida to Boston on Monday, people three rows away were craning their heads to get a look at it. "The bad news is I didn't get any work done during the entire flight due to everyone quizzing me about it--but boy, what a chick magnet."
He concluded with two songs--literally. He had a Yamaha keyboard on stage and played it while singing two songs with high tech lyrics--one dinging the RIAA and the other talking about his yearning for an iPhone. (That's what happens when you put a Yale music major on stage in front of thousands of people--he performs.)
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