“Features that simplify navigation or remove unnecessary steps can still be the difference between a usable app and one that you never return to.”
— I heard Chris Anderson speak at a forum a few years ago shortly after he coined the term “long tail” and was in the process of publishing his book on the topic subtitled Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. The less is more concept traces back long before the oughts, but hasn’t been well utilized across social media/web 2.0 sites, which often are too ambitious and are cluttered with unnecessary features (i.e. poking). In an internal memo to Microsoft employees, the head of MSFT’s search product recently noted that in spite of the progress made by search engines, 40% of queries go unanswered; half of queries are about searchers returning to previous tasks; and 46% of search sessions are longer than 20 minutes. These and many other learnings suggest that customers often don’t find what they need from search today. Search needs to get simpler, and its not a matter of algorithms, but usability. The titular quote is by TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld from his review of Yahoo!’s recently rolled out Inquisitor product which is essentially T9 for mobile search. T9 and Swype (which uses finger tracing for touch-enabled keyboards) make using mobile devices easier, though don’t get as much attention as less useful apps, such as ifart. Apps that have practical utility and/or simply complete the task they are functioned to perform (think “Hello World!”) will be winners as productivity becomes increasingly important in today’s competitive climate.
