I was talking with someone the other day about how confusing I find Facebook as a recent addition to the network and couldn't believe that it was so popular, given the fact that users are usually so overwhelmed by complexity.
In the same conversation, we discussed that, whilst someone can look at my relatively trivial application interface and be completely paralysed by it, the same people might have built up incredible complex patterns of behaviour on their own cobbling together functionality in Excel to achieve a goal that eclipses any complexity I could have built into an interface.
I realised in reading this article that not only do users understand complexity that they themselves create from non-complex components (or over time in reaction to very specific problems), but they also collectively understand complexity if they're on the journey of an application from the very beginning because the early adopters are there to teach everyone else.
If you release a complex product, even one less complex than Facebook is currently, but perhaps more complex than it was on day one, you're releasing into a world with no resources to handle that complexity. There are no blogs, no experts, no neighbours, friends or well wishers, no adult education courses on your product.
By the time Facebook got complex, there was so much community around it that people were able to cope.
I think this is an important part of the "customer development cycle" that I've never really heard explicitly discussed: not only is releasing early important to help you find the right customers, but it's also important to help you increase the complexity of your product over time without alienating your audience.
If you go too long without releasing a product, you get used to it and you're unable to adequately discern the complexity anymore, reducing your ability to explain it and help early adopters along on the journey.
The longer you take to release your first version and get your first customers, the bigger the barrier to entry and steeper the learning curve will be for those early adopters, so they're less likely to take up the cause of advocating and documenting your product's features, blogging about it with helpful hints, tutorials and recipes for using it, than they would if they had been on the journey with you since development began.
We didn't know about the show when it aired. Like many others, we caught up on Netflix much later, loved it, and were surprised they killed it off so early. Be careful not to assume a product problem when you're actually suffering from a marketing problem.
Fun fact that the author should have included: AD actually makes fun of "jumping the shark", using Henry Winkler's character no less.
But it wasn't just 'marketing'. They'd touched a massive audience. Many just didn't 'get it'. The show wasn't meant to have universal appeal. Certainly not the generic sitcom audience. Especially not on a large network.
This brings up a vital question lots of companies often have to face. What happens when growth declines, but you still have a powerful following?
Stir up a little controversy. (2.5 men) Re-brand for expansion. (syfy, cougar town), Give up on the current business model, perhaps try a new one & cut down costs. (dvd sales, movie -- arrested dev. as an example) etc.
that's an excellent way of prioritizing possible features, especially if you sell something that is typically automated.
For example: People can argue that any one release of Adobe Photoshop has told its story, but yet Adobe continually adds new features to an application that's over 2 decades old.
Yes software does carry a lot of weight when it comes to visual design/art, but at the end of the day, it's a tool. Each successive revision should continue to evaluate meeting the needs of its users and adopt changes to meet the demand.
Microsoft Office includes tons of new features, but they refined the UI to the point that it upset users who took time learning the new UI. I think it was a step Microsoft needed to take and it worked out for them.
Apple's Final Cut Pro on the other hand, removed features to refine their app and upset their core audience. It was too complex for your pro-sumer, but too basic for the professional. That's what I call losing focus.
So my point is, software will be successful if it has the resources and focus to make it happen. It may take a long time to reach critical mass, but that's the beauty of a tool set, a nice long growth curve.
Entertainment on the other hand is a one-shot deal, either you like the performance and elements all work together, or you don't.
