On designing for everyone but the user

You can always tell when products are designed for purchasing departments instead of end users. Many cell phones are terrible, even “consumer” phones, but Nextel phones tended to be unusually hideous and bulky. Their “killer feature” is walkie talkie mode, which is great for bosses of poor souls in IT on call at 3am, but is just annoying to everyone else. Compare this to the Razr. It was designed to fit in your pocket, not your nerd holster.¹ You may think Microsoft serves end users, but users are usually their last priority.² Microsoft really designs for big IT departments, governments, manufacturers like Dell, and recently, with Vista’s onerous DRM, the RIAA. Just look at their product positioning. Vista should come in AT MOST three flavors: Server, Business, and Personal. Instead it comes in five, each of which is crippled or enabled in different ways to segment the market. In contrast, Apple makes it easy by offering one very capable OS.³ American sedans are terrible for many reasons, but one reason is that they have to serve fleet buyers like police departments and rental car agencies. Recently Sony has completely lost their way in serving end users. Now Sony serves its entertainment arm. They used to OWN the consumer electronics space with world beating products like the Walkman. Now they are best known for the unusable and unsalable Atrac players and “copy protected” music CDs that compromise your computer.⁴ Apple tends to make good software and hardware. In a way it’s a blessing that they lost the desktop to Microsoft and imploded. It means they had to take risks and make products compelling enough to overcome their market share handicap. One of my few gripes with Apple is that over the years they have been unwilling to produce a non-god-awful mouse. I have no idea why this would be since they have access to some of the best industrial design talent on earth. Of course, many products designed with end users in mind (like after market car stereos) are terrible. I'm saying that if your product is not designed for its end users, then it's guaranteed to be bad.

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1. No one knows how Apple’s coming phone will do, but my hope is that it will prompt other phone makers so stop loading their phones with bad software and useless “features”.
2. Not that Microsoft is all bad. Excel and the original Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 stand as shining examples of products that made the world a better place.
3. Apple does have different OS offerings, but doesn't make the 99% of unaffected users worry about it.
4. Hey Sony, remember when you stood up to Hollywood so the world could have VCRs? What happened to you?