Why does product design sometimes fail? It's complicated

Why does product design sometimes fail? It’s complicated

May 12, 2024 Benjamin Hughes

Everywhere you look, things are getting more complicated. Our phones have over a thousand settings. Showerheads come with apps. Cars have touchscreens. Ovens have touchscreens. “There’s no doubt that ‘featuritis’ is real,” said design consultant Jakob Nielsen. “Most of these things are too complicated.”

Nielsen says that part of the problem is bad design: “Simplicity is actually difficult to achieve. That takes a good amount of time, and talent, I should say, as well.”

And part of the problem is us. As consumers, we tend to buy the gizmos with the most features. Nielsen said, “If I give you the choice between this toothbrush can do two things, and this one can do five things, you may think the five-feature toothbrush is a better toothbrush.” And manufacturers, who believe consumers will pick the product with more features, have an incentive to keep piling them on.

But if you think today’s products are hard to learn, try designing them.

David Pogue

David Pogue is a six-time Emmy winner for his stories on “CBS Sunday Morning,” where he’s been a correspondent since 2002. He’s also a New York Times bestselling author, a five-time TED speaker, and host of 20 NOVA science specials on PBS. For 13 years, he wrote a New York Times tech column every week — and for 10 years, a Scientific American column every month.

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Source: cbsnews.com