This post is spurred by a few thoughts that have recently crossed my mind. One, it’s been an eternity since I’ve posted and the ideas for posts are now stacking up, withering and dying off… it’s time for some action. Second, I’ve recently moved from a quiet suburb of Portland, Oregon to San Francisco… life is not as easy(logistically) as it used to be but the energy of this big, busy, noisy city is exhilarating. And third, as part of this move we got rid of one of our cars and kept the Subaru (which I have mentioned in a previous post)… the Subie has a manual transmission and despite the traffic and the hills in our new town, we are happy it’s the car we kept.
How does any of this relate to a blog that’s apparently about Product Management? Well, these thoughts got me thinking about the value people place on ease of use – more pointedly, I am wondering if ease of use is the highest virtue to seek in products and services – in life?
Let me make it clear at the outset that as a Product Manager who admires products that people buy, use and love, I am not advocating for making things hard to use. No, no, no – I am merely wondering about the questions that need to be asked to understand if (when) ease of use is deemed valuable by customers and markets. I’ve writing about the questions that came to me but I’d love to hear your opinions…
Who is the target customer/user?
Early adopters (all Product Managers have met a few) love new products and services; they love figuring things out when they are difficult and duct-taped together. This makes them feel a sense of pride and they may gain credibility in their community for tackling a new product first. These users demand greater control so they can configure, customize and morph the product or service into sheer coolness. Of course, the more this demand for control is satisfied by the product creators (think massive options dialogs or unending variations on coffee drinks) the harder and more intimidating adoption becomes for the novice. I realize that it’s extremely challenging to peel away from the early advocates but, just like indie bands do every day, sometimes it makes good business sense to appeal to the masses. If the masses are the target customer, focus on ease of use – to these users easy is cool.
I recently read a great article that urges product creators (designers and managers) to empathize instead of trying to quantify ease of use (clarity) and value (usefulness). Empathy comes from identifying and understanding the scenarios of use and then building the product or service to fit these scenarios. Consider for example how quick service and cheap prices are more important at lunchtime on a workday and possibly a negative when you are trying to impress someone on a dinner date on the weekend. Understanding the real use cases makes it very clear that sometimes being easy isn’t the most pressing need.
In the early days of a product category, there might not be an alternative for a product or service. Soon enough, competitors will emerge and start outdoing each other with features/functionality and be rewarded by customers (the incremental value of each new feature is still high). It is truly a time when you build it and they come. Of course, at some point the various offerings become virtually indistinguishable. Then the easiest way to compete becomes price and we all know where price competition takes the market – the eroded margins make it impossible to fund innovation and slowly the most eager price droppers start hemorrhaging into obscurity. This is precisely the time to focus on the customer experience and ease of use. In a landscape of indistinguishable alternatives, how good a customer feels (or how little they are annoyed) becomes critical.
Just to be clear, ease of use is always a good thing but product management is about making tough trade-offs. And as we debate these trade offs, it seems helpful to keep in mind that products, like people, grow and the priorities one sets will need to change with that growth. For now, here’s to noisy cities and manual transmissions – check back with me in a couple of years.
Buy, Use, Love 
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