Simple, but Alive
Today I saw “Note by Note,” about the building of a piano at the Steinway & Sons factory in Queens, NY. The Steinway factory is probably the last place in America where such large, involved machines - the pianos - are made completely by hand. It’s a good movie.
One of the things it made me think about is simplicity, and that it’s not always the goal. On the face of it, a piano is very simple from the player’s point of view. Press a key, hear a note. Release the key, no more note. But parts of “Note by Note” follow pianists as they select pianos to play at upcoming concerts, and for them the piano is anything but simple. Each piano “speaks” differently to each artist; a piano that sounds great to one sounds lifeless to another. These people see the piano as one of the more complex things there is, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. The incredible manual process that Steinway undergoes to create a piano results in a product meant to connect at a gut level. A machine-made piano would be less complex to make, and less complex sounding - “OK for a robot” in the words of one Steinway craftsman, but not for people.I have many clients who ask for simplicity in the product we are designing. “Make it simple.” “Consumers want simple.” But there’s simplicity and there’s simplicity.
People like complexity. We want things that are interesting, that change over time, that hold our attention. What people don’t like is complication. Simplicity is fine if it takes out needless steps, but not fine if it makes a product bland. The details are what give the product life - the kind of life that compels a consumer to give an inanimate object a name.
So as I think about product design and how we talk to consumers, I wonder how to best convey the life of the product - those things that make it special. Maybe mass-produced products can’t each be different from each other, but we can do a better job of finding those details that cause a consumer to say, “Ah! That’s my piano.”
Question for you: Does your consumer think your product is alive?
Speaking of pianos, according to your definition of why a ukelele is a perfect product, does not a piano (except for its manufacture) fit that definition better? How about a drum? All you really have to do is hit it.
Nope, for me the ukulele reigns supreme.
I think the piano is too overwhelming - it’s obvious right from the start that it will take a serious amount of time practicing to get anything “real” out of it. The piano is like Photoshop - a really steep learning curve, though once you get it, you get it.
And I think the drum doesn’t work as a metaphor for good product because it’s too elemental. You tap it a little, and it appears that you’ve done what you can do. For me, there should be some mystery to a great product - you should be able to glimpse the complexity (but not be frightened off by it). You have to play the drums for a while before you really understand how deep an instrument it is (I’ve been a drummer for 33 years, for what it’s worth).
Aaron
Sounds like how you would choose a husband or wife; not too complicated, not too simple. Just complex enough to stay interesting over time.