Are gadgets too complex?

Published on May 15th, 2006

swiss army knife

This is a problem that will continue to get worse as manufacturers cram more and more “functionality” in their devices without thinking carefully about how those devices are intended to be used.

A fast rate of return

More and more, Americans are being caught in a dilemma: They love electronic gadgets with lots of bells and whistles. But they’re also frustrated when they get their new toys home and find out they aren’t easy to install or operate. Half the products returned to stores are in good working order, but customers can’t figure out how they work, says a recent study conducted at the Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands. On average, American consumers will try for just 20 minutes to get a new gadget to work before giving up, the study adds.

The estimated value of returned products in the US is $100 billion per year, according to referenceforbusiness.com – a website aimed at small businesses.

What do you think? Should it take special geek skills to operate an electronic device?

22 users responded in " Are gadgets too complex? "

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# 1 Geoff said, on May 15th, 2006 at 11:43 am

On the average, how many of those 20 minutes does the average American spend reading the manual?

# 2 John Wofford said, on May 15th, 2006 at 12:06 pm

In today’s marketing environment “one trick ponies” are a hard sell. The marketers demand marketing points from the designers, the designers try, but the more stuff they add makes the end product an unmanageable morass of go here, back up, press this to open that then add three clicks of this to arrive there. Then somebody slaps a big red banner across the retail package that proclaims, in really big letters “EASY TO USE!” and the clueless consumers line up to buy the stuff.
Personal Example: I use Stylemaster, a CSS editor. It does a good job, the tutorials lead me to where I want to go, and the interface is intuitive, attractive and easy to use. But now they have an upgrade, with a long list of things that my CSS editor can now do that it couldn’t do before. My fear is that the good folks from Western Civilization (the makers of Stylemaster, from Australia) have tried to make Stylemaster like Dreamweaver, and I parked my paid for copy of Dreamweaver and went back to Notepad for html editing. The upgrade sits in my downloads folder, and I’m not sure whether I’ll install it or not.

# 3 ty said, on May 15th, 2006 at 12:30 pm

I like my gadgets complicated. Sure, why not make some truely easy to use and understand ones. I wont buy them. There are some people who could DEFFINITLY benifit from it tho.. Like my grandparents for example. If a company really wants a product to sell it must be easy to use. Because a huge amount of people are completely oblivious to technology. I dont think its that so many people are dumb when it comes to this stuff its just that they are scared to learn, I teach people how to use computers and do simple things like check there email or share stuff over a lan and I will put it in the absolute simplest terms possible even going as for as comparing things to normal life stuff. But some people are just so against learning that they use dumb as a excuses. Companys should make all there gadgets as complicated as possible. It would be good for the human race.

# 4 rus62 said, on May 15th, 2006 at 1:30 pm

The TSA would love that knife

# 5 ECA said, on May 15th, 2006 at 1:32 pm

Main problem…
1 device controls another… Buy a TV with remote, and without the remote you cant do much.
1 button does 16 things… a MODe button that switches to everything, but button setups that change, look at ANY multi-remote..
TO MANY OPTIONS, thinking about what PCM, 7.1, 5.1, stereo, and WHAT interface you are using is fun…And then WHICH sounds better, and WHAT the movie was MENT/encoded to do????
do I have to go into 4:3, 16:7, 1024p, shadowbox, and the rest???

# 6 Milo said, on May 15th, 2006 at 1:46 pm

Some 8-9 out of 10 people are basically illiterate. Oh sure they can read but if they have to think about what they read it’s beyond them. These same people have never learned critical thinking or logic. I remember reading once that some 80% of Excel users never set up formulas, they just enter things into the cells and do the calculations on a calculator. I asked a woman that I worked with about this. She told that she used the formulas. I was able to look over her shoulder once and saw her doing the calculations on a calculator! So it seems the 80% is too low!

# 7 Improbus said, on May 15th, 2006 at 2:30 pm

Are gadgets to complex?

No, people are to stupid.

# 8 Mark T. said, on May 15th, 2006 at 3:36 pm

The iPod is a perfect example of simplicity = big sales. It is so simple, even my mother could figure it out. And anyone that can use a browser can use iTunes.

Of course, simplicity hasn’t worked so well for Mac sales but that is more driven by availability of applications. At least you can play virtually any musicians’ music on an iPod, as long as it is MP3 or AAC.

# 9 Smith said, on May 15th, 2006 at 4:50 pm

Complexity is not the same as value added. If complexity impedes functionality then the device is a loser.

# 10 gtriamy said, on May 15th, 2006 at 6:33 pm

honestly, if joe shmo can’t pick up the device and have a general understanding of how to use the device in the way its intended within 10 minutes, then the gadget is worth nothing. Whether or not you think you are better than the rest of the world, a good device is one that is easily understood, visually appealling in both design and style, and can preform its function well, both efficiently and effectivly. its a basic law of consumerism, but manufacturers and marketers(don’t know if thats a word or not) have found that if they base a “fade” around the product, all the product needs is design. People buy them up, realize its crud, and the fade is over, while the same manufacturer is thinking up the next. Still, no fade can take away the success of a solid design and solid function of a gadget, and to be a great success in the gadget world, one needs to design his/her product to be simple yet effective.

# 11 ECA said, on May 15th, 2006 at 6:49 pm

Ok,
How about a mutir-remote..
that after you SET your numbers for devices..WONT REST whent the batteries are replaced? They got them, but MOSt dont do it.
HOW about a VCR that dont FLASH, after a power failure?? What!? haveing a small battery/cap that can HOLD the programming?? WHO would have thought of such a nice idea??
A DVD that dont FAIL to default after a power interruption?? COME ON, think about it…
HOW about a REAL GLASS LENSE on a DVD player INSTED of PLASTIC?? Plastic changes shape with TIME and HEAT… LIKE DUH…
How about an OS, that has UTILITIES to keep it CLEAN and back it up, AND a backup system that INCLUDES, a DIR for ALL extra DLLs, INFs, and soforth, so you can BACK them up, withOUT the OS…

# 12 To_Milo said, on May 15th, 2006 at 6:59 pm

Milo said, “Some 8-9 out of 10 people are basically illiterate. ”

Well, I’m not illiterate — my mom did marry my dad.

# 13 joshua said, on May 15th, 2006 at 11:23 pm

All you have to do is just read the comments section of one of the DU’s tech topics and you will find out why gadgets are not easy to run. Most people in this country do not work in the tech field, they simply want the thing they buy to work, and to be easy to work. They really don’t want to have to trade off one of their normal kids for a live in Geek to help run all the gadgets they buy. Sometimes reading one of the manuals is like reading the posters in here talk tech, it sounds nice but has no relation to real life.

Someone said make them harder to work, well, then be prepared to go bankrupt. You can’t make the big bucks only selling to Geeks. The internet would still be the provence of goverment, some scientists and kids in garages if the mass market didn’t take to it, and the products most buy are relatively simple to operate. I know that some in here would be quite happy if the *illiterate* masses didn’t crowd the internet, but then most of you probably wouldn’t have a job.

# 14 ECA said, on May 16th, 2006 at 12:13 am

Software and HARDWARE standard from LONG ago…
KISS…
If I buy a game and take it home, “I WANT TO PLAY IT”…I dont want to read a BOOK.
It should be BASIC, at first, and then, IF I NEED TO, I read the book…
As with a Cellphone Camera…
I want to push a button to take a pic.
I want to push a button to SAVE a phone number…
I DONT WANT, to wade thru a MENU to do the LITTLE THINGS.

# 15 Seth said, on May 16th, 2006 at 2:41 am

Well first of all Improbus has no right to call people stupid when he/she wrote “people are to stupid”. It’s fucking too!!! I’m not a grammar Nazi but when you write 4 words you can at least check to make sure they look ok first.

As for the gadgets, I don’t think they are too complex to understand but I hate the fact that my cell phone can take pictures, audio, video, receive POP3 email, send via SMTP, browse the internet, play MP3s, and it still drops calls and sometimes has bad reception. I just want a freakin phone that allows me to make voice calls with the same clarity as a land line. Until they get that right they have no business adding other features.

# 16 ECA said, on May 16th, 2006 at 10:15 am

16, 17…CORRECT…
We polled a site, of features persons would WISH on their Cellphones…
After all of the ponts were made…I asked..
How about one that WORKED as a CELLPHONE with decent signal and reception…100% aggreed….JUST GIVE ME MY CALLS…
If I WANTED it to play games or watching movies, I would be useing something with a BETTER SCREEN…

YEP, windows is putting SO MUCH protection on the system, that you CANT backup the programs(not the OS, thats easy(almost)) as the DLLs, and INFs to RUN the progs are in WIN DIR…

It would be NEET, if MS made windows with MODULES, for the services YOU WANTED… If I wanted JUST a game machine, I could have SUCH a SWEET FAST box…But I have to have ALL the rest.

# 17 Improbus said, on May 16th, 2006 at 10:22 am

The key to success appears to be making your gadget easy enough for a chimp to use, because a chimp can’t read a manual or engage in rational thought.

P.S. Did I make a grammar or spelling errors this time Seth?

# 18 BdgBill said, on May 16th, 2006 at 12:14 pm

I wonder how much better Windows would be if Microsoft spent all of it’s time and recources on designing a stable, secure OS and no time on Media Player, Internet Explorer and all the other fluff that other companies do a better job at.

# 19 Jack Creasy said, on May 16th, 2006 at 1:51 pm

There is a difference between complicated and unintuitive. If a device is logical then everyone has a chance. Personally, I think that if you can’t figure it out, then you don;t need it.

# 20 ECA said, on May 16th, 2006 at 9:24 pm

I wonder WHAT we would have, if MS, hadnt installed all the backdoors into IE, so they could sell advert UNDER IE…

# 21 Rika said, on July 27th, 2006 at 1:25 am

It does’t seem to be accurate. Most gadgets today are so user friendly. In fact the number of buttons has reduced where just 4 or 5 buttons help u do almost everything. Look at the ipod for instance.
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# 22 JPP said, on July 8th, 2008 at 2:39 am

how many of those 20 minutes does the average American spend reading the manual?
I Dont think this true

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