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The Little Things

Updated April 17, 2014

People love the little things in a product.  They also hate the little things.

A car is a miracle of modern science, but people like how the door shuts or how the headlights are cool looking.  A person is complex, but we judge their handshake.

The psychology is that people can’t deal with the totality of something complex. They zoom down to a detail to make an easier judgement call on quality.

So if you are building a product.  Think about the little details.  Make sure to put a few things to love down in there.  Learn about the little things users hate, hate, hate and fix those little annoyances.  They usually are easy to fix but have enormous impact.

LittleThings

 

Comments

One response to “The Little Things”

  1. Dan Avatar
    Dan

    For example on Windows 7, you can move the order of the tabs of your open windows (whatever that bar on the bottom of the screen is called). This a good thing. However, if you want to close a window on its little rectangle in that bar, I used to be able to right-click and the close option was 1cm from were my arrow was already pointing (i.e. a super easy click). In Windows 7, the close option is a good 1/2 inch away and I have to actively seek it out. It might look nicer there, but it is annoying.

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