Why “Less” sometimes is – less!

Jason, I really like your blog. It’s entertaining and there’s lots of insight in it. Yet I wonder if you might think the world is a disc. Reading your statements about “Less”, “simplicity” etc. makes me nod my head instinctively. You are right. But yet you are not. You don’t want “less” inside an airplane’s cockpit. Your don’t want “less” inside the insurance keeping the records on your health insurance. You don’t want “less” inside a military defense software. You specifically don’t want “less” inside your car if it comes to controlling the ABS, the ESP and what not.

So let’s face the facts: While “less” is a nice idea for a startup in order not to lose focus it is a bad idea for mature companies solving real problems. While I totally agree that the user interface has to be kept as simple as possible (but not simpler) the underlying functionality sometimes is complex because reality is complex. Nature has no straight lines. thus all processes that have to take environments into account don’t simply calculate a+b.

TadaList is nice. But I don’t need it. I use a wiki. Backpack is nice. A wiki does the same job. Basically, I could use Notepad for most of what your products are doing. No offense here but it’s a fact. Your products do a better job than notepad, but overall performance gain is not dramatic. Without modern process control software though, most imported goods, cars, computers etc. would be ridiculously expensive. In that case, simple software is no alternative.

While I personally am connected to the Internet 95% of my working time many of my customers (they are joiners) are not. Or only via low-bandwidth. So online-only products currently aren’t ultima ratio yet. Hybrid products like w.bloggar are.

So please consider the real world outside “the Net”. “Less” is cool (specifically looking at a flat crowded with tons of toys from two little children). But ever so often “less” is – too little.