Overwhelmed By Tech
Gadgets were supposed to make life simple. But some just make people crazy
Hawkins is perhaps Silicon Valley's leading apostle of simplicity and elegance. But he hasn't exactly picked up lots of disciples over the years. The high-tech industry as a whole has a bad case of what design critic Donald Norman calls "feature-itis." Which means? Products are "engineered by engineers for the sake of engineering," he says, "as opposed to for the sake of the person at the end."
Simple sells. The message, slowly, is being heard. The legions who simply can't fathom why it takes four remote controls to operate a single television are finally making themselves heard--loud and clear. And an industry that has historically equated complicated with cool is starting to change. A few companies, tuned in to the waves of consumers tuning out, are beginning to rethink things. Simple, they believe, may now be the ticket that sells. "Consumers are starting to revolt against the complexity of these everyday items," says Norman. "They're fed up."
The revolt is being felt at the cash register, which cast a pall on this week's Consumer Electronics Show, the huge annual gathering in Las Vegas where more than 1,800 vendors display their latest goodies. Sales are anything but brisk, compounding the disappointment of a sluggish holiday season. Analysts blame this on a slowing economy, but some say that's not the only culprit. "I probably use 10 percent of the capacity on my computer," says Andrew Paton, a 43-year-old lawyer shopping at Manhattan's upscale Sony Style store last week. "You buy one, and six months and $2,000 later, it's out of date. I think it's a con." This year, Paton is just browsing, and he's not alone.
The slump in sales is driving the point about simplicity home to a growing number of manufacturers. "Simple sets you free," says 3Com in an ad for computer-networking products. It's part of a $100 million campaign to convince the beleaguered that the company understands people's pain. In that spirit, the company now is promoting its new Internet appliance, fetchingly named Audrey, that lets owners surf the Web or check E-mail. The device, says Don Fotsch, general manager of 3Com's Internet appliance division, is designed to let users "spend less time with technology and more time doing the things they really want to do."
That same spirit may finally be infecting the PC marketplace. Gateway is pushing an initiative to "improve people's relationship with technology." As part of the plan, the company is offering an array of classes and workshops at Office Max outlets and the company's own "Gateway Country" stores. Consumers need help, says Gateway CEO Jeff Weitzen, and the computer industry had better provide it.
The stakes are high. Consumer interest in digital photography and downloadable music has created the potential, Weitzen says, for a "big wave of penetration" by computer makers into untapped segments of the marketplace. But that won't happen, he warns, if consumers remain turned off. If the industry won't help, "people will start saying, `Well, thank you very much for your latest gizmo, but we still haven't figured out the last one.' "
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