What Made Complicated Products Easier To Make

Why is it so complicated to keep products simple?

Simple is better than complicated. This is a no-brainer for all of us.

The notion of simplicity is not new; here is a quote by Leonardo Da Vinci: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication". And Albert Einstein is quoted to have said: "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough". Simplicity has become a value that is widely recognized and sought after across many disciplines — design, architecture, writing, and many other domains where creativity plays a role.

This thought is str o ngly influenced by Zen, the Japanese culture and way of life, that puts Simple and Clean in its core philosophy. Japanese Calligraphy had always been a source of inspiration for Steve Jobs, since his days in college. His obsession for clean design is often called "Techno-zen". It is interesting to note that, in Japanese, the sign 'Simple' is part of the sign 'Zen':

Japanese Kanji. Left: 'Simple'. Right: 'Zen'

A beautiful and well-known example of a complex product is the Wenger Swiss army knife model 16999. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the product, here it is (this is a real picture):

It's the world's largest Swiss Army knife, weighing almost 1 Kg, packing 141 functions into 87 implements. It includes, among other things, nail cleaner, cigar cutter, telescopic pointer, fish scaler, Fiber optic tool holder, toothpick, and a compass. Writing reviews on this product on Amazon has become a thing; here are a few examples:

I think these reviews (and all the other hundreds of reviews you can find online) sense an inherent truth which is — this product, and its set of features, is ridiculous. Piling all these implements together doesn't make any sense. The Wenger engineers pushed to the extreme the ability to combine few tools into one appliance, and on the way, they lost the users. They built it just because they could, not because there was a need for the product.

But what is so bad about complexity?

Well, it's bad for two reasons.

The first one is that complex systems are harder to develop. They require longer development and testing time; more things can go wrong, and also the maintenance of these systems gets more complicated.

The second reason is the user experience. Complex systems are by definition more complex to operate, and thus often fail to meet the users' expectations. This, in turn, can translate very quickly to poor adoption and engagement.

The obvious and practical question that rises from the above discussion is this: How can we keep things simple? What exactly should we do to simplify our products? The fact that too often companies fail to deliver simple products, suggests that the way to simplicity is not that easy.

There are plenty of articles out there that try to explain how to keep things simple. They usually concentrate on design tips and practices, and many of them are indeed good.

Yet, I would like to attack the issue from a different angle.

The core problem, as I see it, is the unawareness of companies, and product design teams in particular, to the level of complexity embedded in their products. Only with full awareness of complexity, the journey of reducing it can begin.

Complexity, alas, is a subjective matter. From my experience, the same design can look very complicated to some people and very simple to others. These others have, what I call, complexity blindness. They see a complex system, and they are perfectly fine with it. They get it, it does not take them out of their comfort zone since their mind is complex and it is wired to handle complex patterns. It's not that they are against simplicity. They would fully agree on the concept of simple being better than complex. They just don't see the complexity. So the challenge is to make the discussion a more objective one. In other words, to find the objective ruler with which we can measure the level of complexity in a given product or system, and then agree on the steps to reduce it.

Here are some tips for product managers on how to deal with this task — identifying and then reducing complexity:

Once your spec has reached a stage in which you can present something visual (a sketch, mock-up, etc.) to the stakeholders, invite them for a session and ask for their feedback, and specifically what they think of the complexity level of the product. Then you can go through each feature and ask, "if we remove this feature, how much do we damage the product?" If, for a given feature, you get a unanimous answer, "we damage the product only to a small extent", then this feature should be removed.
If possible, run a session with real users. Although this probably requires some extra effort, it always pays off. Ask users specifically about their first impression. This will give you a good sense of how the mass market will (or will not) accept your product. Remember that the human attention span is getting shorter every year, and it is now close to the attention span of a goldfish. In this respect, simplicity is ever more critical.
Don't attach too much to your features; don't fall in love with them, and don't get too much emotional about them. It's OK to let them go. The prioritization for features should be ruthless.

And above all, be aware of the complexity blindness phenomenon. Embrace the fact that one of these blinds might be yourself 😊

To summarize, here is a nice Dilbert piece: