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Perspective: Do people need the gizmos we're selling?
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During a recent three-day period, I was exposed to a new robotic vacuum cleaner, a new high-definition version of TiVo, a device to stream movies from a PC to a television, new game consoles, new MP3 players and, yes, even a belt buckle that plays videos.
I can't help but wonder if consumers really want all this. Have we gone too far? Are we in step with the needs of today's American consumer?
On the one hand, few consumers want to be left behind with yesterday's technology. On the other hand, the consumer electronics industry may be moving so fast and jamming so many new features into devices that we are making the experience too complex.
I would bet the average reader of this article has at least one electronic device--a cell phone, home stereo, television, programmable thermostat--with a button or feature that he has no idea how to work or no clue what it does. I am no different. While I work in the electronics industry, I also share the same frustration with complexity as everyone else.
To me, simplicity is imperative, not just because products have become more complex over the years, but also because every aspect of our lives continues to get more complex. Today, the majority of American families extend beyond a single household and our jobs increasingly invade our private time as we juggle family schedules and responsibilities while answering e-mail on mobile devices.
Rather than simplifying our daily routines, most technology has actually made our lives more complex.
Spending hours learning to use a new gadget is the last thing most of us want to do. The ability to take a product out of the box and just have it work, without the need to read a manual for hours, is now high on most consumers' priority lists when deciding on a purchase.
My company has studied the relationship between technology's complexity and consumers' attitudes and found that two out of three Americans have lost interest in a technology product because it seemed too complex to set up or operate. We also found that only 13 percent of Americans believe technology products in general are easy to use. The study concluded that only one in four consumers reports using the full range of features on most new technology products.
If these findings aren't enough of a wake-up call, the study also found that more than half of Americans believe manufacturers are trying to satisfy perceived consumer needs that may not be real.
Clearly, the American consumer believes that we are still cramming features and functions into our products simply because we think they will sell or in response to fierce industry competition.
We need to change that. As makers of tomorrow's gadgets and gizmos, we need to take a lesson from the success of Google. It rescued users from complexity by presenting the simplest Internet search interface possible. Another Web site, Craigslist, has done the same to maintain simplicity and to-the-point information at users' fingertips.
The key for many technology breakthroughs that delivered simplicity has been design, manageability and functionality. Consumers do not have to deal with complexity at all.
The fact that some products have been able to deliver this should have raised the bar for all technology products. My industry needs to better understand the impact technology is having on our lives and find ways to simplify the overall consumer experience. And consumers should demand that we deliver this, always. After all, what is the purpose of designing a product for consumers if they are not able to use it?
Biography
Paul Zeven is CEO of Philips Electronics North America.
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gizmo, complexity, complex, simplicity, gadget
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I follow an innovation method named SIT - Systematic Inventive Thinking. One of the thinking tools that this method is based on is called Subtraction. The basic assumption is that that most of us, when asked to invent, innovate, or problem-solve, tend to add features or functions to an existing product. Addition is the easiest way to modify a product - it's so intuitive, in fact, that we usually don't stop to consider the alternatives. But is more always better? Do added features always mean added value for customers?
The definition of Subtraction is simple:
Take away an essential component from the product, and find benefits for the subtracted version. The challenge, then, is to identify the potential in a Subtraction, even when it seems to fly in the face of everything you think you know about your product and your customers;
To read more about the SIT method, visit SIT's innovation blog at www.sitsite.com/blog
I follow an innovation method named SIT - Systematic Inventive Thinking. One of the thinking tools that this method is based on is called Subtraction. The basic assumption is that that most of us, when asked to invent, innovate, or problem-solve, tend to add features or functions to an existing product. Addition is the easiest way to modify a product - it's so intuitive, in fact, that we usually don't stop to consider the alternatives. But is more always better? Do added features always mean added value for customers?
The definition of Subtraction is simple:
Take away an essential component from the product, and find benefits for the subtracted version. The challenge, then, is to identify the potential in a Subtraction, even when it seems to fly in the face of everything you think you know about your product and your customers;
To read more about the SIT method, visit SIT's innovation blog at www.sitsite.com/blog