Simplicity Rules

It’s natural to assume that to make something better requires a complicated solution. More explanation, more features, more conditions.

The Wheeze sends me a look inside what Google found out about power supply efficiency. If, like me, you don’t get that jazzed about computer hardware, see how you can apply the following to your project:

You won’t have to pay more for a higher-efficiency PC, because the power supply is actually getting simpler, not more complicated.

You can get more out of less effort, and so can your users. All you need is to find the spots where you’re wasting power.

I’m excited to introduce Text WifiPDX, a service to find nearby WiFi hotspots (in Portland):

Three easy steps
1. Create your message in the format Wifi <address>
2. Send the text to 41411
3. Wait for the quick response

This is a feature that has been complete for well over a year. When my hard-wired WiFi brain isn’t working, I’ve been able to text in and find hotspots. The problem was finding the right texting number.

Short codes are a long shot

To get a number like 41411, I would have had to go through the short code bureacracy. It’s a lot of money and even getting a short code doesn’t insure that I’d be able to have my short code usable by every mobile provider.

I first found a site that provided keywords with 2-way SMS. I sent a message with my keyword (wifi) to a UK telephone number. Then, it forwarded my message to a web page, returning the reply in a text message. It was exactly what I wanted and worked as a personal proof of concept. I’d have never asked the public to text the UK, so it wasn’t a real solution.

Then my friend John and I worked on getting an open source SMS gateway working. For awhile, John had it running in his San Francisco apartment. With a 503 number, this might have worked fine.

TextMarks to the rescue

Luckily I waited, because John found TextMarks, a site that provides the same service as my original UK site, but with a short code, 41411.

Check it out, Portlanders, and let me know what you think.

I’m quoted in an article about Portland’s municipal internet. Among other things, I say, “For me ubiquitous access means I don’t have to base my life around wherever my office is.”

I have been working from coffee shops and cafes since late 2001. Even though I’ve had an office for several years, hotspots around the city have still helped me stay connected. No doubt, WiFi has simplified my life.

Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful. In that definition are the two Simplicity Paths: tearing down and building up.

Tear down

Trim to the barest essentials. Look around at what isn’t needed and tear it out. Reduce.

Build up

Start from the core and add on only what you need. Organize, so you know what is essential at this moment.

Tear down and Build up

Most (all?) of the time, you’ll need both paths, working together. Simplicity is a give-and-take. As you remove what you don’t need, add back the meaningful stuff.

The core is my favorite part. It’s like a wall awaiting paint. I push myself hardest to tear down, because only then can I experience the project from the core, building out.

I create web programs that take user input and do something smart. Not every site needs to be overseen by someone with my skills. I’d guess 99 in 100 projects can be completed with off-the-shelf web software.

Still, there are programmers who want to shout from the kills the “dangers” of not hiring a good coder. These programmers are marketing from fear. They don’t want to be replaced by a packaged solution.

Every industry faces similar fears. The great people don’t market from that fear.

The TV news magazine 60 Minutes had a piece on low-cost real estate company Redfin. Agents go bonkers when someone talks about reducing commissions. One site took reporter Leslie Stahl on a fictional drive-along to show how much time and money it takes to sell real estate:

But now comes the fun part. It’s about noon by now and we get to go out and get our daily dose of disrespect and hatred from the FSBO’s and Expireds. So we head back to the gas station to load up the Jeep with gas…another $55.00.

It left me wondering why the author even wants to be an agent.

While I was reading up on reactions to the Redfin story, I noticed a lot of comments rolling into a site I never launched. My friend Jon and I started iPod Wedding after he had a good experience choosing the soundtrack to his reception. We haven’t made it past the first post, but a DJ forum found the site and DJs started leaving angry messages. Here’s one of the tamer ones:

Have you all lost you minds!!! I am a DJ, and I have to say that this is nothing short of complete stupidity!! Whoever wrote this how to needs some real education on what a Dj does. What about the intros, the events, when the food is served, where and how the best photos are to be taken. A DJ sets all of these things up, its the experience of the DJ that makes the entire party

This guy may be right. Jon and I met spinning CDs at the campus radio station. I’m sure good DJs can make a better reception. Marketing from fear of automation isn’t the right way to convey your unique value proposition. If you’re scared of it, maybe there’s a reason?

I should finally read Player Piano, a book my friend and fellow programmer Josh has long recommended:

Vonnegut’s first novel, an unforgiving portrait of an automated and totalitarian future, was published in 1952. A human revolt against the machines which control life was arranged by the machines themselves to prove the futility of such resistance.

Did you know we still have travel agents? My guess is that the ones who do it well don’t go on about how much they hate online booking.

Thanks to Lee Brimelow for the water bottle photo.

NYTimes personal technology columnist David Pogue gave a passionate TED Talk about Simplicity in technology.

This is a guy who tests out gadgets and software for a living. His message is that it’s simplicity that sells, not features.

Pogue’s voice recognition software put out a new version without any new features–just better voice recognition. That is a ballsy move when most software companies are trying to add another bullet point to their packaging.

His biggest advice for creators:

“The hard part is not deciding what features to add, it’s deciding what to leave out.”

That’s right out of the Laws of Simplicity.

“It’s not my fault.” That’s what Mac OS 8 and 9 would say (text-to-speech) whenever there was an error. That isn’t the nicest way to approach a user. It’s cute, but why does it have to be my fault?

The problem goes beyond error messages. Usability problems on websites are often interpreted as the user’s problem. Of course, that’s not true. One of my colleagues at BestPlaces recently said, if they don’t get it, it doesn’t matter if we think we’re right, we’re wrong.

Just as we should plan for generosity, we should make sure it’s always clear: It’s all my fault.

At first glance, Tripbase is a one trick pony. You enter the amenities you’d like in a travel city, and it gives you a list of ten places.

For starting so simple, the options to refine your search are surprisingly robust. You can set the budget, the dates, and several other criteria. But it all starts with a screen so simple, you can’t help but try it out.

via Andrew Chen

In any content, headlines rule. A good headline catches my attention and makes me want to read more.

When we have others create the content, they also supply the headlines. That means it’s up to we savvy web people to point them in the direction of better headline writing.

For WifiPDX, I asked reviewers to Give us the one sentence pitch. Why would you go here? It was a good thought, but there were two problems:

1. This was the last field on the review page, despite being the most important
2. It let to generic headlines like, “It’s great,” or confusing answers like “I wouldn’t” (go there).

Then there’s the case of BestPlaces CityViews, where visitors leave their comments on places (for example, Portland comments). I labeled the headline field “Title.” This most important part of a comment has been consistently misinterpreted.

That’s right, people think that I am asking their title: President, Principal, Student, Human Resources Director, I’ve seen it all. To be fair, most people get this right. Since I have seen over 15,000 CityViews, this has happened enough that it’s a problem.

The fix could be as simple as calling it a headline. I could also provide a comment preview, so someone has a chance to make changes before committing. There’s probably even a little more guiding to be done.

If the goal is to generate good headlines, we can’t just give them an empty box. We need to help them fill it with good stuff.

Yesterday morning we walked down to Crema for a pastry, some coffee, and the Sunday New York Times. I knew there was a profile of Bert, the head researcher for BestPlaces. I didn’t know it would be plastered across the front page of the real estate section. Pretty cool.

The article was a pretty good overview of what we do at BestPlaces and has some pretty glowing quotes. I hadn’t heard this story about how Charlottesville reacted to being named the Best Place to Live in 2004:

The president of the chamber was so proud, Ms. Uriss said, that she had bumper stickers made up that proclaimed, “We’re the No. 1 City in America.”

They’ve slipped to number 17 this year, after their housing prices doubled.

“I guess we’ll have a lot of bumper stickers left over,” she said.