37signals posted an interesting article about the two sides of a consumer - the one who makes the purchasing decision (and wants features) and the one who has to live with the product afterwards (and wants ease of use)

In turn, they point to a paper on ‘Feature Fatigue’ which I think misses a point.

If you take their argument literally, product convergance is a bad idea because the aim is to put as many features into one device as possible. Thing is, we know that if the user interface is designed well, product convergence is a great idea.

In my pocket I carry a voice memo recorder, mp3 player, FM radio, web access device, digital camera, mini flashlight, alarm clock, electronic diary and address book that synches with my mac and my mobile phone. Actually, I just carry my mobile phone, but it does all those things. It does most of them pretty well. I have no doubt that the next generation of Sony Ericsson phones - or even better the now semi-confirmed Apple Smart phone - will do them even better.

So we know packing a device with features works. The trick however is not to just leave them all dangling out there, but to provide a great way of using them. I don’t turn my camera on, for example, I just slide the lens cover back. I can assign shortcuts to functions I use often to the little joystick in the middle. I can easily find what I need after learning the interface for about 5 minutes. It’s a great tool.

From the paper’s abstract:

Because consumers give more weight to capability and less weight to usability before relative to after use, consumers tend to choose overly complex products that do not maximize their satisfaction when using them, resulting in ‘feature fatigue.’

And later on in the abstract:

Our results suggest that firms should consider having a larger number of more specialized products, each with a limited number of features, rather than loading all possible features into one product.

This is a flawed conclusion. If you go on to read the paper, you realise that what they actually mean to conclude is:

1. Some users buy features they don’t want, because to get the features they do want, they have to buy the bundle and this causes “stress”
2. Some users find a product with more features confusing because they don’t know how to use them all, even though they want to
3. Trade-offs have to be made to reduce product complexity, and that can impact sales

Well, the solution to that lot is not to reduce the number of features, but to reduce the complexity of using those features, and perhaps add the ability to hide features a user doesn’t want. In software in particular, tailoring a user interface to a particular user’s needs is a standard thing to do - if somebody logs in who would only ever need to see reports, why bother offering them a view of a load of data setup and configuration parameters?

The solution is not more specialized devices - I don’t want to carry 9 devices in my pockets, I like to travel light - the solution is to produce a better user experience for the converged device. To think through the problems of user experience is hard, but worthwhile. For my money, Sony Ericsson does this well, and I expect more product manufacturers will refine this process over time.

And I’m never buying a stand-alone camera again unless I plan to go pro.