Every once in a while, a technology, gadget or software comes along that delivers so much value so simply that it seems indispensible. It simply works and works simply. Engineering excellence. Efficient and elegant design. While I realize that few things are truly indispensible, in my everyday life, while trying to get things done, there are times when something I’ve been doing becomes drastically easier. There are many ways to say it, but when something works so well, it almost tickles.
Take for example blogging. For the longest time I’ve been using the web page editor that blogger or other blogs provide for writing entries. Some are far better than others, but all of them suffered from being extremely slow, kludged, buggy and sporadic. It was an all too common occurrence to have written a long and detailed blog entry only to lose it when posting because the website was down and the browser lost the entry or something similar. It was a huge source of frustration.
Enter Windows Live Writer. I’ve been using it for the last few days and as recent blog post frequency might indicate, it drastically simplifies blogging. For example, it automatically configures the editor to display exactly the way the blog would look when published. Web page editors leave a lot to the imagination. It also allows for inserting multiple images simultaneously and move or place them with drag and drop. WYSIWIG (what you see is what you get) editing has been around for a long time. But, it’s been woefully vacant in the blogosphere. There have been other attempts at making the blog editing experience better. Word and other editors made valiant attempts, but they were far too complicated and weren’t purpose built. All those other features just got in the way when it came to creating a post. I’m tickled pink with Windows Live Writer. It does just what it’s supposed to do and no more. I’m becoming more and more of a believer that great design is not about what you can add, but what you can remove.
A few years back, there was a product called FolderShare. Simple elegance. It did one thing and did it well. It allowed you to share out a folder on one machine and replicate all contents of that folder to any other machines. It was one of the most beautifully designed solutions I’ve ever enjoyed. It simply worked and worked simply.
Windows 7 is fast becoming one of my all time technical ticklers. I haven’t tried any of the new features. None of them. I’ve simply been using it the way I’ve used all it’s predecessors. I’ve been saving files, adding printers, sharing folders from other machines, connecting to the internet and wireless, and all the other mundane things that people do on a day to day basis with an operating system. Why so giddy? IT SIMPLY WORKS. When I went to search for a driver for a device on the motherboard on my new laptop, I thought to myself, here we go again. It’ll search, say it can’t find it and give me a lame note like Vista does saying contact your hardware vendor or something. Then I would have to go searching for the right website, right architecture, right version and so on to find the device driver. Arg! It’s one of the things Vista was supposed to do so well and just didn’t. Windows 7 did it right. It simply fixed the problem. I’m not even sure what it did. It happened so fast and I was so busy dreading the next steps that before I knew it, the problem was solved. Period. And I’ve had many experiences like this with Windows 7. Simpler, easier, faster and intuitive.
It’s a lesson we software engineers love to banter about but often forget. It’s not how much is in the box that matters but rather how well the product meets the stated needs of the customer using it that truly matters. We get so wrapped up in cool features sometimes when what we really should be thinking about is how to make the experience almost imperceptibly simple and intuitive. We talk a lot about innovation. I believe we should be talking more about simplicity, fit to purpose and intuitiveness.
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