2021, Chapter 13:
The Curse of Inertia
AKA benchmarking. AKA competitive research. AKA shaving the clay.
AKA being lazy, playing it safe, doing the same thing as everyone else, snoozefest, boredomville. Too afraid to take a chance, to stand out, to make a breakthrough.
Unfortunately, this is the accepted and normal state of product development these days. This leads to lookalike rectangular phones, decontented-or-made-in-cheap-places-for-low-price products intended to reach the top of your online shopping searches, the same product from 126 different companies (frequently made by one factory, LOL), ever-creeping “smart” features that no intelligent person ever questioned but just happen to make everyone feel like a dumbass, compounding user interface errors bolstered by all the focus groups you can afford…and a general malaise, a stagnation, a lack of progress on many product fronts.
Stark? Maybe. But in a world that could be improved simply by having a way to easily turn off emojis, memojis, video messages, animated screen takeovers, irritating haptics, endless robocalls, crap that is simply distracting or useless—and further improved by recalling, celebrating, and preserving the simplicity of the most basic and physical user interfaces, beautiful and intuitive stuff we can no longer take for granted—and further improved by asking the hard questions, like “have we maybe been doing this wrong the whole time, or at least the past few decades,”…well, maybe it’s not so overwrought.
Is this criticism too focused on phones? No. This isn’t just about phones. This is about many, many products. Like smart products that require you to download their app to run their crap. Sometimes this can work fairly well, but many times it’s an exercise that leaves you older…and feeling dumber.
Or is this too focused on the app economy in general? I don’t think so. Aren’t you saddened by the lack of truly new and surprising things in general, as more and more companies use big data powered by benchmarking and “competitive research,” (AKA I have no ideas so I’ll copy something) to create more and more of the same and same.
“But that’s the way the world works,” someone says.
But it doesn’t have to. Go blow up your head and watch this. Yes, it is an 18-minute video on toasters. Yes, I ranted a bit about toasters in a previous chapter.
Have you watched it? Have you gotten to the insane mechanical engineering? Have you gotten to an actual working thermal sensor with no electronics? Does it make you think, just for a moment,
holy hell what have we lost?
Why did something like this disappear?
Maybe it was too fiddly to make, and wasn’t super reliable (or maybe it didn’t survive cost-engineering…in my gut I think this is more likely.)
Or maybe, in the rush to same-o, same-o, approved-by-the-focus-group, maybe it was just too weird? Maybe it didn’t benchmark well. Maybe it was just perceived as too slow in the hurry-hurry-panic-every-day world we live in.
Aside: drawer microwaves, for example, are a fundamentally stupid idea. Press a button and wait…wait….wait…. for your convenience food device. Nobody spoke up in those design meetings. Or maybe someone did, but they were overruled because they figured the fancy folks might buy it because it’s different.
And yet in our hurry-up age, we’re all too accepting of many “smart products” that are actually dumber, slower, and less reliable than their counterparts. It’s telling that one of the things that the press thought most exciting about the new Ford Maverick is that it
came with a key.
Yes, as in, an actual, physical key that you put in the dash and turn.
This is something else I’ve railed about in the past—the disappearance of the key is one of the most fundamentally stupid and infuriating things that has ever happened. I mean, Let’s take a $2 product that everyone knows how to use and turn it into a sometimes-doesn’t-work-cause-dead-batteries-oh-crap-what-kind-are-they-where-do-I-get-them device that sometimes is a $800 + trip to the dealer for programming if lost.
In my more cynical moments, I think that the reason the world of Dune has no thinking machines is because there was just one too many times the emperor had to wonder if his Arrakis Industries voice interface would talk to his Ix Specialties Gesserit Sensor Lighting system, and, after a half hour of saying, “AI, show Sensor Lighting to Imperial Palace Home Screen,” because the voice interface is the only way to make it work, he just said **** it and launched the Butlerian Jihad to destroy the whole mess.
Aside: anyone who has used Google Home knows what I am talking about. No, seriously. “Play ‘turtle cam’ on ‘smart tv no 2’” is not an intelligent way to show something on a screen. Show me a list. Let me drag and drop the list. Or press a button to show one source on another. I do not want to (a) try to name devices so the system will recognize the words I’m using, or (b) try to use something so fundamentally stupid that the only way to make it work is to use voice commands.
Another voice pipes up: “Stoddard is just being reactionary, as usual, while most of the products he creates are (ahem) refinements of their existing line.”
Sure. Yabetcha. We do need to improve the line. I get this. A lot of what any company does should be improving on what they are already doing.
But…there’s gotta be unexpected stuff.
When everyone knows exactly what the next iPhone will be—better cameras, smaller notch, new colors, snooze—it’s time to shake it up. Because even though you have to shave the clay on the current line, that doesn’t mean completely abandoning shocking new directions.
I mean, hell, we’ve even shaken things up while refining products, splitting the line (Magni, Modi), combining the line (Magni, Modi), thunderdoming, increasing output 2.4x over three iterations, reducing price up to 50%, splitting off entirely new ideas (Hel, Fulla3+). We’re trying to do more than change the colors and make everything thinner. And we’ve had some success.
And we have innovated, and we have shaken up the market. The amount of super-high-value stuff we do is unprecedented. We helped bring multibit DACs back from the dead. We helped establish relay ladder volume as the premium choice for volume control. We’ve helped stem the stampede to Class D. We provide unprecedented value—frequently with products that cost less than those designed and/or built in countries with huge price advantages.
Now, it may be time for us to take some real chances, with some truly surprising stuff. It certainly feels like it. But that’s the subject of another chapter or three in the future.
Aside: and, guys, taking real chances means making real errors. Don’t be surprised of some of the stuff we’re working on will be (a) shocking, (b) weird, and (c) ultimately unsuccessful. If you see something weird and whacky that you really, really like, probably time to buy.
A final voice pipes up: “Is there a point to this? Because we all know the tech stuff is kinda messed up, but they are working on it, and some smart things provide real value.”
Great question. Let’s break it down. I agree with the first and third arguments:
tech stuff is kinda messed up, and some smart things provide real value.
But the genesis of this chapter is mainly about the “but they’re working on it,” assertion. Because in the last year, many of the changes appear to be going in the wrong direction—more opaque interfaces that are deeper and harder to use, and the incorporation of smart features where they make no sense.
Aside: Seriously, I do not want to download an app to use your toaster. Even if it personalizes my toast. I personalize my toast just fine, using a dial and my eyes. Nor do I want to know what that toaster screen will look like in a couple of years.
Aside to the aside: Seriously, I do not want to download an app to use your subwoofer. Yes, even if it allows me 11,000 tweaks I can apply to it! More tweaks = more nervosa. You wonder why most people aren’t audiophiles? This is one of them. (Very topical, because I just bought new subs based on the fact that one company didn’t have an app.)
Aside to the aside to the aside: Seriously, I do not want to download an app that (a) applies to a product without a screen), and (b) de facto locks everyone out of it. Smart sprinklers seem like a great idea…until you realize you own the sprinklers, because nobody else wants to download the app, and you really don’t want to deal with permissions.
So, to get back to what the point is, it’s this: let’s look at some of the pitfalls of the curse of inertia, and see if we can provide people working in product development ways to avoid them. Or at least some pointed questions they can ask when the powers-that-be seem intent on galloping down the stupid road.
Breaking the Grip of Inertia
Inertia is comfortable. Inertia is easy. Inertia seems safe. That’s why so many companies get stuck into it. Even some of the world’s largest companies. The problem is that inertia only seems safe. One moment you’re traveling at 25,000 MPH in the vacuum of space, the next moment someone else places a baseball-sized rock in your path.
One moment it’s totally smooth and silent. The next,
boom, you’re gone.
So how do you break the grip of inertia?
Let’s start by accepting that inertia is a problem. Many companies have not. Apple, for example, has not realized it’s a fundamental problem that literally anyone can describe the next iPhone. There’s no surprise anymore. No insane greatness. No more lines at the stores.
At the same time that hardware design has stagnated, though, Apple has embraced fairly large changes in user interface…many of which result in a harder-to-use, more-invasive, higher-frustration experience. There are two sides of inertia, both staying-the-same and heading-too-fast-to-the-wrong place.
Do you think I’m picking on Apple too much? Nah. Much the same criticisms could be leveled towards Google. Even Microsoft, after a bit of brilliance in the initial Surface launches, has devolved into predictability.
Worse, all of these companies, for better or worse, have a view of their current customer which is (a) too narrowly defined, and (b) is dependent on an ecosystem (the last refuge of a company grown too large.)
For an example of (a), consider the iPhone. Apple is super excited about its customers taking photos, sending wacky animated texts, and ensuring that they are connected to all their friends by every immersive way they can imagine.
But what if I want a “seriously, don’t bother me, I’ll bother you,” mode? Or never want to see an emoji, let alone a memoji? Or, gawd forbid, I don’t take many photos?
Is there a way to choose who you are?
Oh yeah, Focus, some will say.
Ah, and you can customize the home screen. And you can drill down through 517 menus to figure out how to turn off notifications, both sound and haptic, to everything? And maybe you can even figure out how to get the phone to only buzz for, say, your significant other and no other.
But it’s not
easy. It’s not
simple. And it might be fundamentally
off-putting to many customers.
Aside: but it doesn’t matter, because duopolies, and because ecosystems, and because **** you. But that’s a different chapter.
Again, do you think I’m picking on Apple too much? No, the same complaints can be used with many other companies, in microcosm.
“So how do you avoid this?” you ask. “Like, both kinds of inertia, both too fast and too slow? How do you make things better?”
You start by identifying your inertia—and then by challenging it. And yes, I know, you may not be in a position to upend how your company works, but you can certainly ask questions. Sometimes that’s all that’s needed to change things.
Don’t laugh. I’ve seen it work. It’s amazing how, many times, questions simply aren’t asked.
Want an example? One more before we get to the checklist. Once, my agency (Centric) was working with a company that made sportswear. Very expensive sportswear, based on some fancy patented fabric treatment process. They were discussing rolling out this new product, and talking about what they had to do to make it in China. This process included:
- Manufacturing the special treatment compound here in the USA and shipping it to China
- Tagging the special treatment compound with another compound so they could (a) test to see if it was being used, and (b) determine if it was being used for other stuff—as in, ripoff designs
- Shipping the treated cloth for testing in another country.
- Shipping back to China for manufacture
- Batch testing of treated cloth in the USA
- Batch testing of final product in the USA
So. Yeah. Inexpensive labor, at the cost of one beeellion tons of CO2 in shipping.
I let them talk about this for a while, then asked, “Wouldn’t it be cheaper to make this in the USA?”
They blinked a bit, completely nonplussed. This idea had simply never occurred to them.
“I mean, American Apparel does it,” (well, it did back then.)
That really got their attention. They argued back and forth, and agreed that, holy moly, it might actually be cheaper (and certainly less worrisome) to make it in the USA. Sorry, I’m not sure how it came out in the end. It may have been made here, or they may have succumbed to inertia and sent it to China.
Aside: I’m not crapping on China—in this story today, replace China with Vietnam or whatever. And I get it—the USA is at a fundamental disadvantage on the price of certain products. The reality is always gray.
So. Yeah. One question. Got them a lot more data. A lot more options. And this is from a contractor, not even someone who works for the company—a contractor doing marketing, not apparel manufacturing.
Enough. Let’s get on to the inertia pitfalls, and what you can do about them
Product Lifecycle. Let’s start with the big one. If your company produces a product to a “product lifecycle,” watch out. That’s a recipe for shaving the clay, tiny safe iterations, decontenting, second-guessing-by-benchmarking, focus group analysis paralysis, and more. It’s the reason Samsung TVs change incrementally every year, iPhone updates are predictable and annual, and consumer audio and office gear gets a digit change and marginally worse plastics to fit the same price point every time the earth completes a circuit around the sun. In short, it’s a new product for the sake of a new product, every year, whether you need it or not.
So how do you fight this? Well, unless you are the resurrected Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, you don’t do this by fiat. That’s the harsh truth. However, if you’re involved in product development, you can start asking some questions:
- Wouldn’t it be better if staff weren’t working to artificial timeframes, especially timeframes that may be affected by parts availability?
- If we stick to the yearly product release schedule, but we can’t ship product due to supply chain issues, how bad do we look?
- Is it better to be working on better products on longer timescales, products that can stand the test of time?
- When was our last KitchenAid stand mixer? As in, an iconic product that doesn’t need to be tweaked every year?
- What actual leaps forward have been made in past product lifecycle iterations?
- How many times have we come out ahead of the competition by our own metrics—what’s our batting average?
- Is there information beyond competitive benchmarking to drive product development, up to and including pop culture, social commentary, and other large-scale changes that drive preference beyond a checkbox list?
- Beyond benchmarking, is there any analysis of price sensitivity? One that takes into account moving into different, higher-end markets?
- If we are using focus group data, can we see the unedited video from it to determine if it has not been steered by a participant or by a moderator? If online, is there any unedited discussion?
- How sustainable is change for the sake of change? Does this focus change the equation? Is it better to drive a 1968 Mustang, or fire up the factories to make a Mach-E?
And yeah, I know. Nobody wants to ask these questions. The company can probably go on for many more years without this kind of navel-gazing. But if you’re really, truly committed to helping it be the best it can, these questions are worth asking. Especially if the “2022 version” risks not shipping at all.
Benchmarking. As in, the Mentat of product lifecycle. The idea seems innocuous: compare your business performance against the competition, to see who has the lowest cost across the board, the best quality, the fastest product development. Unfortunately, this can frequently be used to justify the status quo, and quash any real advancement. I mean, if you’re already doing fine, why work harder doing better? This is why DMVs suck. I’m sure all of them do fine on government benchmarks. Unfortunately, the benchmarks suck.
Here’s where you can make a difference, especially if you are involved in benchmarking. If you are part of the team, carefully and narrowly define what you are benchmarking, and know what kind of information you’re trying to get out of it. Do everything you can to ensure it doesn’t affect products. Don’t share it with a ton of people. When shared, it should have a big red banner across the top of every page, reading:
This is yesterday. We’re operating in today and tomorrow. Don’t use this to discount the possibility of huge positive change.
If you’re not involved in benchmarking, other than meetings, ask questions:
- Do we feel that copying the past of our competitors is the best path to the future?
- When was this data taken, and do the same assumptions apply today?
- What did we expect to get out of this study?
- Have the results of these studies changed radically—and for the better—since inception? How long have we been taking this data?
- Who is this shared with?
Is there a summary of any ideas that don’t fit this study? Have any of these ideas been used on a trial basis?
Focus Groups. AKA Twitter in real life. Or virtually, since lots of them are online now. If it was up to me, these would be banned. I have never seen a useful focus group, and I’ve sat behind the one-way glass on many of them. Maybe it’s because my focus groups were marketing. Maybe UI would be better. But I suspect it is the same.
Because they all have one big problem: the loudmouth.
Yeah. That guy. Or that girl. The one who you can hear across the room. The one who always has an opinion. The one who will groan and whine and wheedle until you agree with them. They usually run away with focus groups, because most others participants aren’t like them. Your focus group results are frequently the opinion of one loudmouth.
Choose a moderator loud enough to drown out the loudmouth, and you risk getting the opinion of the moderator. Throw out the loudmouth, and maybe everything is invalid.
But, since we can’t ban focus groups, here’s how I’d deal with them:
- Nod when given the data, but throw it away and never read it (only partially kidding)
- If you have to go to a presentation of the results, start asking:
- Did anyone dominate the results?
- Can we see the original video or online interaction?
- What were you trying to determine with this?
- Do you believe this group represents our customers well? All of them?
- How many times have focus group data been critical in determining the success of a product? Give three examples.
Competitive Research. I’m not talking about professional research you pay for (treat that the same as benchmarking—a backwards-looking, somewhat suspicious take that may hold you back—I’m talking about when your engineers or designers “need inspiration” and start looking at what other people are doing.
Here’s what to do:
- Turn off the wifi
- Take away their phones
- Give them whiteboards and ask for their ideas
Am I joking? Only a little. The problem is, once you start looking at what other people are doing, you risk being sucked into a black hole that eats all creativity. It’s like, for a creative agency, taking a sketch from the client. All creativity ends. Do everything you can to help your people have original ideas.
Decontenting. In a few decades, amazing receivers that began with extruded aluminum and steel stampings, with finely figured custom wire-and-cable displays and heavily weighted knobs that people still collect, have become plastic-faceplated, trashbin-cheap-display, rubber-knobbed monstrosities that nobody will ever miss when they die.
This is called “decontenting.” As in “it needs to be $199 this year too,” even if “this year” is 1979 or 2021. If you’re asked to decontent something, it’s time for some pointed questions:
- Do we risk losing to the competitors with a cheaper product, if they decide to raise prices to meet the actual cost of production?
- Is there any data on the price sensitivity of this product?
- What are the downsides to raising the price? Can Marketing not communicate the additional value?
- Is it time to go the opposite way? When there are price disruptions, there may be a chance to go upmarket.
- Are there any ideas not based on keeping the same look and form-factor? Any ideas based on new materials? Have we thought about this beyond the “throw away the expensive stuff” side?
Do this right, and you may be making those products people still lust after, rather than lowest-common-denominator shells of former greats.
Overseas Manufacturing. Okay, let’s define this as “making things in inexpensive places for the purpose of hitting a price point.” Again, this is not an indictment of the practice. In some cases, it can be a significant competitive advantage (specifically, if you need to hit a low price point on a complex new product, and if you have sufficient control of your IP).
But overseas manufacturing breaks down to two basic scenarios, and the questions for each are different. So let’s treat them separately.
- Making a new product.In this case, you have a new product you’d like to make. It’s not like anything else out there, or at least sufficiently different that you can’t go on Amazon and buy a close analog of it. In this case, you’re going overseas for cost reduction. Nothing wrong with that. But the lure of lower cost sometimes blinds people to the downsides. So, how about some questions:
- Do we own the factory overseas, and have sufficient control of the IP for this new product?
- If we don’t own the factory, do we believe we have sufficient control over the IP?
- Even if we believe we have control of the IP, do we have a plan in case our new product shows up under a different name, at a lower cost?
- Would it be better and simpler to make it in the USA, if we are taking extreme lengths to protect our IP?
- Would making it in the USA (or Canada, or Germany, you know what I mean) give us a competitive advantage due to customer perception?
- Would making it here allow us to charge more?
- Would making it here make the product better?
- Making a copy of an existing product.Lots of times, though, a company isn’t looking at doing an entirely new product. Lots of time, it’s tempting to take a product already made, and put your name on it. Now, I personally think this is fundamentally stupid and insulting, but I know people do it, so the only thing you can do is ask some pointed questions.
- Can we really, truly differentiate this product in a meaningful way?
- Do we really need this me-too product? Why?
- Does a me-too product affect the perception of our entire line?
- How many of our competitors are using this exact factory?
- Do we believe our name will blind people to the source of this product?
- If our competitors are already doing this, is it already past its peak, and therefore not worth doing?
- Are we willing to participate in a race to the bottom of price, once everyone has this?
Smart Features. This should really be called “smart features (that are really dumb),” because that’s where we’re going. Look, I’m not railing against all smart features. There’s no doubt we can do some very cool things with smart stuff, whether it’s in your phone or in a cheap Wyse cam. It’s just…toasters and subwoofers with apps, cars without even a dongle, and other crazy ideas are, well, ****ing crazy.
So, if your company is dipping a toe into the smart river, here are some questions you should ask:
- How does the smart feature add value? This is the key. Sorry, I’m not super convinced that changing the color temperature of your light bulb is quite worth it. But then again, I’m not all that thrilled with the Nest Protects we have either—getting my phone to shut them up when we burn something in the kitchen ain’t wonderful—but they at least don’t go off in the middle of the night, like the contractor-grade crap they replaced. Every smart feature should be grilled on what value it is adding—and then hit with the four questions below.
- Is it fundamentally creepy? Bulletin to Commander Data and other non-humans: a lot of humans are more than a bit weirded out by stuff that records everything you do, and listens all the time. I know, I know, time for a tinfoil hat. But that’s the reality. Does it really, really need to keep all that data? What will it be used for? If you’re adding a smart feature, do you need to go into detail on that, to help reassure your customers?
- Is it more trouble than it’s worth? So the car key has given way to the dongle, which is giving way to no key in Tesla (key is on your phone.) So I now need my phone to deal with my car. Does this make sense? Is it truly more secure?
- What is the failure mode? What happens when the battery dies? When it dies, is it replaceable? If it’s not replaceable, do we feel bad about all the waste we’re creating? Is that sustainable? Is the perception of unsustainability bad for our prospects?
- Does it make people feel stupid? Is it easy to get up and running on your home network? Is it clear what it does? It is easy to add more? Does it rely on some whole-home thing people might not want or understand (and might not be well-supported?)
Seriously, I have heard so much frustration with smart products—and experienced so much of it myself—that I believe there’s more than one opportunity for companies doing
dumb products.
UI Changes. Or, let’s expand this to “UI changes and personalization.” Now, I get it. UI begs to be changed. It is fundamentally malleable. And sometimes that change is for good reason. But lately, a lot of the changes appear to be focused on burying simple functionality (Apple watch, hiding the microphone is a real dick move, not everyone will figure out it’s now embedded in the text input box, Chevrolet, having no physical button marked with a check, when the screen and manual both refer to “press (checkmark) to enter” is also fundamentally dumb. Go back to the above. Don’t make people feel stupid.
Also, not everyone needs to see the 128 new features that were added in the latest iteration, especially if those features are geared at friend-level interaction, and you’re using a business phone.
Also, not everyone needs to have every! Exciting! Thing! Thrust! On! Them! (Especially popups on media or commerce sites. Please kill me, we will never use those.)
So. Questions.
- Is there a way to simplify the overall experience for everyone?
- And then give them a simple, one-click way to personalize it to their actual needs?
- Is it better to hide most functionality, and let people add as they need to? Hint: the answer is YES!!!!! Complete with the 5 exclamation marks.
- Do we have customers who don’t use these friend-based features, or would want to turn them off?
- Do we have customers who don’t want our business features? (Microsoft, looking at you. Nobody should need Word on a phone, I think. But then again, maybe I’m weird).
- Can you imagine a presentation about the benefit of taking away features, rather than adding them?
- What’s the top most confusing thing in our UI, according to customer feedback?
Of course, there are tons more questions here, all based on the kind of UI. These are heavily phone-centric, because that’s topical, and in front of most people. But the arguments on UI go all the way down to us, because UI changes was one of the key things we had to get right on Urd. We had two candidates. One was prettier, but more complicated—and did not work well with the size of the display.
Guess which one we ended up going with…after I asked some pointed questions?
Good luck on your own product development!
