Simplification over complex features

People have been making things simpler for a long time. When Henry Ford designed the Model T, he famously said customers could “have any color they want, as long as it’s black.” This wasn’t stubbornness—it was simplification that made cars affordable for everyone.

In UX design, we face a similar choice every day. We can add more features, more options, more ways to do things. Or we can focus on making the core experience really, really good.

As products grow, teams start thinking that more features equals more value. Every stakeholder has ideas. Every user request seems important. Before long, products become like Swiss Army knives—they do everything, but nothing particularly well.

That’s what this value is about. While features can add value, simplification often adds more value by making everything easier to use and understand.

What really matters in simplification is:

• Finding what users actually need (not what they say they want)
• Making those core tasks effortless
• Keeping the experience focused and barrier-free

French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry captured this perfectly when he wrote:

“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

We should solve real problems for users, but resist the urge to solve every possible problem. Sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is say no to a feature request.

UX is about making people’s lives easier, not more complicated.