Simplify, simplify, simplify…

About a week ago, I started writing down the ‘shopping list’ of our application. Just a keynote document with different kinds of functionality and features that were a good representation of the idea I had in my mind. So I thought…

Sooner than later the size of the keynote document grew to a staggering 43 slides. Realizing that the development efforts (and costs) associated with building all these features would go through the roof.. As we still are unfunded as a company and we neither have an endless reserve of development time available, I should think about that. We cannot build it right on perfect the first time, neither could we introduce all the dream features right from the start. It forced me to think. Think long and hard about what it is that this platform is really, essentially, gonna offer to our users… What is it that will attract people to this website? What is our ‘social object’? Why will they come to us? What shared interest will connect people on our website?

I got inspired by the book “Rework” by the founders of 37signals.com, who stripped down their idea for an web-based project management and collaboration tool called ‘Basecamp’, right down to the absolute essence of the offering. They have been exceptionally successful because they kept it simple. A book I certainly recommend you to read, especially if you got yourself stuck in a job with a large corporate employer

I learned by simply asking people: “I want to track my health with my phone, just the things that are relevant for me and I want to share that with my doctor, my nurse, my daughter, my daily help at home: with anyone that can help me get healthier.”

Now.. I have a drive to design that in such a way that it remains narrow enough as a concept, so that visitors understand right away what they can do at our site, what it is that they have in common in there. Focus and narrow down. Simplify, Simplify, Simplify… Graphic designers, interaction designers, experience designers, web developers, all of you that I met at #TNW last April: I will surprise you with a decent, well thought through concept that we can work on together for some hours!