Every product starts simple. Then a customer asks for one more option. A department needs one more field. A partner requests one more step. Each addition is reasonable on its own. Together, over a few years, they turn a clear product into something only experienced users can navigate.
Nobody decides to make a product complicated. It happens one sensible decision at a time.
Adding is easy, removing is hard
Adding a feature has a visible supporter: the person who asked for it. Removing a feature, or declining to add one, has no obvious champion. The benefit, a simpler experience for everyone, is spread thinly across thousands of customers who will never write in to thank you.
This imbalance means complexity grows by default. Simplicity only survives when someone deliberately protects it.
Every option has a cost
Each additional choice on a screen asks the customer to stop and think. Each extra step is a moment where some people will give up. Each rarely used feature has to be maintained, tested, and supported long after the person who requested it has moved on.
When I review a proposed addition, I try to ask not only “who benefits?” but also “who pays?” The answer is usually every other customer, in a small amount of attention and time.
Design for the common journey
In most products, a small number of journeys account for the majority of use. Those journeys deserve to be as fast and obvious as possible, even if that means less common tasks are placed one level deeper.
The mistake is to give every feature equal prominence. When everything is highlighted, nothing is. A good product makes the most frequent task feel effortless and keeps the rest available without getting in the way.
Remove something every year
A useful discipline is to review the product regularly and ask what could be removed. Which features are rarely used? Which steps exist only because of an old requirement? Which options confuse more customers than they help?
Removing things requires courage, because a few people will notice and some will object. But the far larger group who find the product easier will rarely say so, and will simply keep using it.
Simple is not the same as basic
Simplicity is sometimes confused with a lack of capability. In reality, simple products often hide a great deal of sophistication behind a clean surface. The complexity has not disappeared. It has been absorbed by the organisation so the customer does not have to carry it.
That is the real work of product leadership: taking on the complexity ourselves so our customers do not have to.
Dr. Mohamed Mousa writes about financial technology, business strategy, and leadership.