Joel Spolsky Attacks 37signals and iPod
Posted on December 12th, 2006 in Usability | 3 Comments »
Simplicity — “I think it is a misattribution to say, for example, that the iPod is successful because it lacks features. If you start to believe that, you’ll believe, among other things, that you should take out features to increase your product’s success.”
No offense, but few people are savvy enough to even begin talking about removing features to increase the chances of success. Only the best designers and usability professionals understand the possibilities of success by removing features. Most people buy the party line which Joel is selling: More features, more profit.
Take at look at 37signals’ Getting Real. You’ll see how Joel’s setting up a strawman. 37signals isn’t trying to remove features to succeed. They say start small. They say scale later. They say let customers tell you what they want. They’re not saying that you should remove features to succeed.
Joel’s grade on Simplicity: F
3 Responses
I must admit that I think Joel is right. I cannot recall a single project where having features was a successful strategy. Of course, adding the wrong kind of features – or making bloated software isn’t very good either.
The entire Getting Real deal is to me only a good strategy when:
a: Your competitors makes way to complex software
b: You are new on the market – or your product is new to the market.
As an example. Imagine anyone trying to make a clone of BaseCamp with less features – wouldn’t work :)
…where having **Less features** was a…
I can’t say I will agree with Joel and Thomas Baekdal here.
A good example of simpler is better is the new “Import data” feature on Google Finance. I wrote about it in Simplest “Import Data” User Interface Ever
However, I still recommend to read Thomas’s article “make it hard vs make it easy“