‘You don’t understand. Let me explain how our product works’, the start-up’s founder would say with an annoyed tone.

But I knew that was the beginning of the end. At least for that pitch.

When I was studying at Northwestern I interned with a small start-up in Chicago. For 10 weeks, twice a week I was taking the train to the most famous coworking space in the city – 1871. There I was immersed into the start-up environment – witnessing early stage companies trying to raise money from investors. 

I saw around 70 pitches during competitions, meetings, or casually delivered near the elevator. After a while I started seeing a pattern in the pitches that were not effective – almost always the investors were confused about how the product worked. 

The truth is –  if people are confused by your product, they will assume it’s a bad product. As Don Norman famously said – ‘Two of the most important characteristics of good design are discoverability and understanding’. 

It doesn’t matter how many smart people designed it or what cutting edge technology you have incorporated. __If you have a confusing product – you need to simplify it. 

The two most common myths related to confusing products that I hear in my job are:

‘Users feel confused now, but they will learn’

After I read ‘The design of everyday things’ by Don Norman, for the first time in my life I didn’t blame myself for not being able to fill a bathtub in a hotel room. A bathtub consists of many different and connected parts – it’s complex. How do I get water to the faucet and not the shower head? How do I keep water in the bathtub (damn you, drain stoppers)? How do I adjust the ratios of hot and cold water without getting drenched? Everytime it was a steep learning curve for me. 

Steep learning curve refers to something that is difficult and takes much effort to learn. Most of the time, steep learning curves occur in complex products. To ameliorate users’ experience these products show tutorials. In reality, there’s nothing more annoying than having a tutorial pop-up to teach you something when you are in the middle of your own flow. I am yet to see a tutorial that was effective in teaching me something.  

What I’m trying to say – If users can’t figure out your product on their own or it takes too much effort to figure it out – they’ll most probably leave. A product should be designed by default for simplicity, not performance. Later, it’s your users choice to set up the product for maximum productivity. 

‘Users who are confused are not our target audience’

Focusing on a target audience is really valuable. As Julie Supan said: ‘Relieved of the burden of that “go after everyone” mindset, you can invest […] in acquiring and retaining a single customer target’. As a former marketing person I’m all in on this idea.

What I’m completely against is segmenting your customer by their ability to understand your product, rather than on the strength of their needs. 

Let me explain. I have a blog on YouTube and as my channel grew I had an increasingly strong need to produce high quality videos. A friend recommended that I start using Final Cut Pro, which is the industry standard for video editing. What followed were days of pure frustration, since I couldn’t figure out how to do the simplest actions without googling. 

If I were to churn at this point should Final Cut Pro assume I’m not their target customer? No, I am a content creator whose need is so strong that I spent $299 of my hard earned dollars to buy the product. 

Every target customer is a novice at some point. Don’t make it frustrating for them to become your loyal users. Watch them on-board and use your product for the first time to get a better sense of what’s causing them to churn. 

In a nutshell, stop blaming people for not understanding your product. If your users are complaining about the product’s complexity – you need to simplify it. Products should be designed by default for simplicity, not performance.