People love the little things in life. They also hate the little things. I have a Projection DLP TV from Sony. I appreciate the HD picture. However, I hate, hate, hate nthe power button. I always press it wrong. How could they mess up a power button?
In my car, I love the little button that I can call Katie from the steering wheel.
These are just examples, but all of the time people get hung up on the details, either loving or hating them. It’s the brains way of saying, “I can’t deal with all the input, let’s zoom down to a detail and I can make an easier judgement call.”
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.
Don’t fight the brain. Be one with the brain. Be the brain.
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.