Product Management: why simple UX wins

I am a big believer of simple user experience.  Simplicity is more than design philosophy.  It's way of communicating clarity.  It's way of showing focus.  It's way of selling.  This is especially true with software.  That's because software does not have form factor unlike physical product that you pick up at Home Depot.

Take a look at this tool:

What do you think that is?  Bluetooth ear piece?  Ergonomic mouse?  Or thumb drive that has flip-out USB connector?

Simplify User Experience: Make It Physical

These days I spent most of my time thinking about user experience. I see increasing importance of getting the user experience right. As I discussed on my earlier post, I believe that good user experience is human-computer interaction designed to be so intuitive that almost invisible to the users.

I Had To Struggle With This Perfectly Functional
In-Flight Entertainment UI Built Pre-iPhone

If you are international traveler, you are now accustomed to seeing personal in-flight entertainment system. I just had a pleasure of sitting in front of one for 14 and half hours. When you are stuck on a plane for that long, perhaps it is expected that you'll learn how to navigate through different screens with controller.

Before touchscreen user interface, interacting with controller looked perfectly normal thing to do. If you want to move the cursor around, you use four arrow keys. If you want to select something, you first highlight it then press enter. That's how we've been interacting with computer, Nintendo, XBox, and Playstation. Things were perfect. Until iPhone came out, that was.