Have you ever struggled with technology? Software crashed, got error messages that make no sense? Didn’t know which button to press next?

Well, it seems it may not be all your fault. David Pogue (technology reviewer for the New York Times) has that story.

Many of us are guilty of not making our services easy to understand and simple to use. Intimidating and confusing IVR interactions, complex transactions and fragmented organisational structures all serve to frustrate customers.

Thank goodness not all customers try to express their feelings in song. But, it is no less important to listen out for customer feedback through all channels and touch points just because it comes in less entertaining wrappers!

As David Pogue rightly say, “simplicity sells” – a message none of us can afford to ignore.

21st century marketing, Voice of the Customer, customer experience, customer experience design | 2 Comments

Darren Cornish

Ian, couldnt agree more! I read this pretty amusing blog from Dilberts creator, Scott Adams – very much on the same theme :- http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/things_i_dont_know_how_to_do/

I think part of the problem is that people find it hard to ‘sell’ simple solutions. Shame.

26.06.2009 13:15

Ian Mapp

Darren, thanks for the link to the Dilbert blog. Yes, it is the same sense of frustration as that expressed by David Pogue. Which reminds me, I should have credited David Rhodes on the FreshNetwoks blog (http://blog.freshnetworks.com/2009/06/simplicity-sells/) for originally pointing me to the TED video.

Selling ‘simple’ might be hard – but designing simple products and services is *much* harder. Simple in the sense of easy to understand and use, not simple in the sense of lacking the necessary features and functions to be genuinely useful.

The simplicity factor needs to be balanced with the motivation to learn. Nobody would say that learning to drive is easy, but we place huge value on the benefit we get – so we persist. (Many would say the same applies to Microsoft Windows!). Humans appear to have an almost limitless ability to overcome difficulties if the goal is sufficiently important. Scott Adams has made some pretty clear decisions on what he considers ‘worth it’, as we all do every day…

As an aside, self-accompanied singing is one of the few things I have never seen you do in presentations – any aspirations in that direction?

ian

27.06.2009 10:12