Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability 2nd Edition

A recent featured article in Wired discussed the idea of “Good Enough” products. What this means is that we don’t care as much about product features as we do about product cost. The article gives a few great examples starting with the Flip video camera, comparing it to the more expensive offerings by Sony and others. Wal-Mart has proven to us that people care about paying bottom dollar for products. We all want more for less, but with things like electronics I think we can all admit that we don't use half the features they contain. So why do we need them all? Being able to pay only for what we use isn’t a new idea. It’s just not always that simple or practical. When people design products, having a low and competitive price is definitely important, but each customer wants different features. So in order to make a product competitive and more interesting they add additional features. Additional features allow you to charge more. The other approach is to create additional types, which is what we see in things like gum and soft drink flavors.