Keeping it simple is a principle that is timeless and applies across all
industries, primarily because
customers never ask for a complex solution.
So why is this so hard? Great product teams are always clear on who their customers are and what problem they are trying to solve, but often after requirements are finalized and designs underway, teams can find themselves going
adrift. In my experience, many companies attribute this lack of focus to
two main reasons:
- The sophistication or complexity of internal processes
- Just plain outsmarting themselves on what they think is the best design
The results are predictably
schedule delays, scope creep or worse--a suboptimal solution that leaves customers confused and frustrated.
Here are a
couple of example projects that I worked on where it was all about keeping it simple. The first is an investment
portfolio review solution for customers to evaluate and adjust their investment strategy. While extremely complex from an internal company process and compliance framework, the solution needed to be easy to use and help
customers feel good while
building their confidence to make decisions about an investment strategy that was best for them. The second is an
education resource fund solution with the primary focus to raise money and issue grants to classrooms across school districts. This seemed simple enough, but required focus on how to keep the solution simple from a
user experience as well as
easy for the company to maintain, while finding a way to re-purpose over 25 pages of content that resided on the old site.
So
regardless of industry or size of project, next time you are designing a customer solution, remember to ask yourself
am I keeping it simple?
