Ease of Use is the Most Important Feature
Usability is about people and how they understand and use things, not about technology. — Steve Krug
Many times a product that can do wonderful things never picks up steam, while an overly simple product takes off. Why do people consistently choose ease of use over robustness. Well, they don’t always. The users always pick ease of use, but purchasers of products many times overvalue other items such a long feature lists or a slick in person demo, only to be disappointed when staff is frustrated with the product if they ever invest enough time to use it.
Below are key reasons you should value ease of use as the #1 feature and tips you can use to identify if a products is easy to use.
Surprising Satisfaction
When the effort required to complete a task is less than the reward, value is created. The easier to use a product is to get that reward, the greater the value. With greater ease of use the value is expected to be low and thus an opportunity for surprising value is created, which in turn leads to the surprising satisfaction. On the other side, if a product is hard to use, it leaves people feeling frustrated and lowers productivity as the use of the product is an energy drain for them.
It has been found that with increased ease of use, trust and satisfaction in a product increase¹. Which leads me to adoption, maybe the most important reason to look for ease of use in a product you are purchasing.
Adoption
Nobody wants to purchase a product for their team only to find that few if any of them are using it. Easy to use products consistently gain more traction with enterprise products and thus are more successful. Give me a simple product 80% of my staff will use over a robust product only 10% use every single time.
Most people aren’t trying to be experts, they are trying to get a job done well, as fast as possible.
Convenience
as the underlying principle to why these things matter, especially if what users are doing is not core to their job, but helps them to be better. Most people want to do more than what they currently do, but if the effort required is bigger than the reward, then it isn’t convenient enough for them to adopt.
Some Points of Clarity
Products need to solve a problem and provide value too, nobody makes something just to be easy to use. Like the foundation of a house, it is necessary, but it needs more to exist. However, without a foundation, a house crumbles over time, as will a product that is not easy to use.
Ease of use is not always the most important feature. If you are an expert in something, like a software developer or an accountant, then the tool needs be powerful more than easy to use. Thinking about excel for accountants. But for the average person, we want something more like Turbo Tax.
Why Are Many Products Not Easy to Use
It’s hard to sell ease of use. If ask to see the ease of use feature, you are not going to get it, because ease of use is way of doing things, it is not actually a thing. You can view a demo, but that is being given by an expert in the product. Thus, for so many companies, especially in enterprise products, ease of use is devalued.
It is hard to sell ease of use, but easy to sell a long list of features
What is valued is a list of features. It is quite easy to show you how a product can do 100 things and it seems impressive. But if a product can do 100 things, it probably doesn’t do many of them well and they are most likely had to use. It’s a matter of focus.
While the long feature list looks good, it’s often the stumbling block of making a product easy to use.
Why Is It So Hard to Know If a Product is Easy to Use
Have you ever heard a sales rep or a marketing team say “Our product is easy to use?” I bet you hear it every time you look for a product. It is really hard for potential buyers to know or prove if a product is easy to use and thus it become undervalued as everyone says it. That is why below I’ve listed tips to help you more objectively determine a products ease of use.
Anyone and everyone says their product is easy to use. And when everyone says it, it loses its meaning.
Tips To Identify If a Product is Easy to Use
- Does it tell you what to do
- Are people recommending it
- Do everyday people use it or just experts
- How much do have to do to complete a task start to finish
- Is it visually appealing
- Can you do this without training/walk throughs
- Does the product work like other popular products
- Look at the feature list. The longer the list of features, usually the harder a product is to use.
- Are mistakes reversible or identified before they become so
- Do you have to make unnecessary decisions
