Comments on: Is the incompleteness of your application hiding behind the term ‘Simple’? http://aymeric.gaurat.net/2010/is-the-incompleteness-of-your-application-hiding-behind-the-term-simple/ On building profitable web applications Sun, 20 May 2012 23:23:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: David Pham http://aymeric.gaurat.net/2010/is-the-incompleteness-of-your-application-hiding-behind-the-term-simple/comment-page-1/#comment-1006 David Pham Thu, 13 May 2010 06:25:12 +0000 http://aymeric.gaurat.net/index.php/2010/is-the-incompleteness-of-your-application-hiding-behind-the-term-simple/#comment-1006 Good insight into the topic of simple vs. incomplete - like you said, often many applications claim simplicity but do not achieve it either through an underwhelming process for accomplishing a task or overwhelming complexity. However, I do believe the applications you brought up (and most others that claim simplicity and are actually simple) like Tada List and KISSMetrics do not attempt to hide incompleteness by claiming simplicity. For you, a person with above-average knowledge in these realms, the features found in these applications are obviously not enough. However, for the audience whom these applications mainly target, the features are often just enough to accomplish a certain, and often mundane, task efficiently and quickly. An idea that goes along with simplicity is perception. The simplicity of a product is perceived differently by everyone. You said that KISSMetrics doesn't provide enough value for you to use both it and Google Analytics, however, many others don't believe it is so simple, it is incomplete - evident by the number of users of KISSMetrics. Great point, though. I do agree that some applications choose to use "simple" to describe their applications which don't accomplish a task well enough, when "incomplete" would better fit the bill. Good insight into the topic of simple vs. incomplete – like you said, often many applications claim simplicity but do not achieve it either through an underwhelming process for accomplishing a task or overwhelming complexity.

However, I do believe the applications you brought up (and most others that claim simplicity and are actually simple) like Tada List and KISSMetrics do not attempt to hide incompleteness by claiming simplicity. For you, a person with above-average knowledge in these realms, the features found in these applications are obviously not enough. However, for the audience whom these applications mainly target, the features are often just enough to accomplish a certain, and often mundane, task efficiently and quickly.

An idea that goes along with simplicity is perception. The simplicity of a product is perceived differently by everyone. You said that KISSMetrics doesn’t provide enough value for you to use both it and Google Analytics, however, many others don’t believe it is so simple, it is incomplete – evident by the number of users of KISSMetrics.

Great point, though. I do agree that some applications choose to use “simple” to describe their applications which don’t accomplish a task well enough, when “incomplete” would better fit the bill.

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