I need a car, not an airplane

I am sick of seeing products with too many features, to the extent I get confued.

Should good products have less features? Not necessarily! However, it is important that a new features in a product should be added only when

• when consumers demand for it, and/or
• when customers are ready to consume it

As a user, it is very embarrassing to look at a product and wonder what the hell does it do! Especially, if there are so many options and controls on the interface. And a complex-to-use interface generally means that the product is meant for more mature market than the users' current skill level.

Nothing wrong with that, but let me get mature with usage of product. Let me get used to simple things, and then I will request for more power and fine-grained options.

If a product is intended for broader market (from beginner to power user), figure out a way to expose only enough features to match users' expectation level and gradually expose them to more powerful features, as they become more proficient and demanding.

And yeah, as you add new features, also keep a tab on features which are no longer relevant, and remove them. It will simplify product design, and keep costs down.

[Thought provoked after reading a blog entry from Laura Klein.]

Another incident to prove importance of acceptance criteria

McAfee had a goof-up.

As soon as anti-virus was updated (and generally auto-updated), an important system file was quarantined. Windows would shutdown every 60 seconds, and USB would not work.

Now, it is impossible to accept that this was not detected during the final QA, when checklist of all acceptance criteria for the product release was being ticked. Assuming, there was a checklist, that is!

Lesson to learn: Product Managers, be ready with your constraints and acceptance criteria for a product release, and work through it with the engineering team. Follow "stop the line" principle from lean techniques.

Too many choices confuse customers

Give me something that will solve my problem, and I'll buy it.

"And, if you want to solve this problem too, you can add on ...."

"But, if you are not interested in , then you don't need to buy this...."

"And, if you are not sure, you should go for this..."

...

...

And, I end up with 10 different options. Overwhelmed. Confused.

Yes, I like options. But, only up to a count of 3.

More than that, I assume you are not confident in what you are selling.

Are you ready to listen?

Yes, social media is important. Interactivity is important.. blah, blah, blah..

More important: Are you ready for it? As soon as open the gates, there will be all sorts of conversations happening. Are you ready to deal with them? Act upon them? Show everyone - you care.

If not, you may just fall flat on your face, as you try to keep pace. Have you calculated the cost of not responding once you open your interactivity channels? Is your business process geared up well?

And yes, the quality of your groups does matter. Its important to know whom you are talking to? Understand the market reputation of customer, and the impact they can make on market. Even a small customer might make a big impact in market.

EDIT: another interesting post on same subject matter "Don't listen to your market"

Hey! Listen to me

Customers and users will just turn their back towards a business, if the company is not showing any interest in having a healthy interaction with its users.

Better products do have a better market perception. Their customers feel nice when they call up customer support, in case they have any issues using the product, because they know their problem will be addressed, and they will get a solution. Customers of these products also feel proud and delighted to tell the support folks (and their friends) when they happy using the product.

As a business, this is your key to success. Let your customer know you are listening to them, reach out actively, seek their advice, let other people know what you have learned..

..and most important, let people know what are you doing about the advices and complaints you heard. Provide feedback to your customers. They need it as much as you do.

Do it right, and you will never have to lower your prices to beat the competition.

While surveys are good for one-way communication, many product managers are increasingly using social web to create online communities, groups, and fan pages to interact with their customers and users. If you are separated from the end-users by another layer of service providers (or distributors, retailers etc), interactive communication with your end-users is even more crucial, and goes a long way in providing delightful user experience.

How effective are these methods? We'll discuss it in a later post.

Features and constraints

Ok, another one.

Better products have well defined constraints and few features.

What does that mean? It means that products that succeed in the market will not try to include every feature that can possibly be added, but its product managers carefully select a very small feature list, and then define a large set of acceptance tests (or constraints) around those features to ensure those features do what they say.

Not a comfortable idea, if you ask some of marketing folks. But, look in history. It works.

What do you say?

[Edit: I pondered a bit more on this topic, and wrote it here. It is not necessary to have less features, but it is important to add features as and when required. Product release criteria (constraints) remain as important as ever and should be thoroughly defined, no matter how many features a product has]