I thought Matt Burns’s article about Apple’s relatively simple product line struck a chord:
Garmin makes 82 GPS units that can be mounted in a car or carried in your hand. 82!?! That’s a lot and includes 27 designed specifically for the car. If Apple made a GPS, there would be two models available – maybe only one. Apple would shove everything they could into this one GPS and sell it at a profit instead of making similar different models that feature slightly different specs.
I can relate, because I recently bought a Garmin GPS, but first had to wade through model-feature-comparison-hell.
There’s a lesson here that many product managers miss: fewer choices is frequently the better design.
- Does Garmin really need two models, identical in all respects except Bluetooth support?
- Does every Windows install really need to ask what directory to use for installation?
- Does my PC wireless configuration really need to ask me a bunch of questions about what network to use? Why doesn’t it just find the strongest, test for openness, and use that one? (but let me change it later if I want)
If you’re a product manager: SIMPLIFY!