Features vs. Usability: A False Dichotomy
When we released Twitbit 1.1 we felt like the majority of work was behind us. Sure, we still had some sizable features to implement, but the framework was done. The major pieces were in place. The style was solidified. We spent a couple days away from the code base after the release and returned to discover our sentimental attachment to it faded. We sat down to code with fresh perspectives and what started as a 1.2 became a 2.0.
We fall into a useful state of denial during a release phase. We rationalize away problems with our design and conclude the code couldn’t possibly be any better. That’s useful for the purpose of getting something out the door. But once it’s out, and once we’ve had some time to recover from a frantic development cycle, our self-evaluation becomes a little more sober.
In the case of Twitbit 1.1, we really had a problem with the ‘More’ tab. That is, we had 7 functional tabs, but the last three were tucked under an organizational tab called ‘More’. It just didn’t feel right. We deliberated long and hard about whether to even use tabs — and we’re comfortable with that decision — but are the functions of Twitter so diverse as to justify more than 5 tabs? After all, much of the appeal of Twitter is its simplicity. It wasn’t so much a matter of concrete problems with 5+ tabs, but that it indicated a degree of laziness on our part. It felt bloated; like the UI was too big for the feature set. There was a mentality of “new function, new tab”. Simple solutions are usually best, and our solutions were definitely that. But in this case that reasoning felt like an excuse.
We swallowed our pride and set out to get our app back to 5 tabs. We were open to every possibility, no matter how much work it entailed. You’ll have to wait for Twitbit 2.0 to see exactly how we did it, but we did do it. 5 tabs. I’ll give you a hint: some of the common tricks in our toolbox were persistence, shortcuts and generally considering how other apps solved similar problems elegantly.
The interesting part has nothing to do with 5 being a magic number, but what we observed during this exercise of reduction. The natural assumption is that you’d have to make sacrifices in the UI to support more functionality. Turns out, the opposite can also happen. We learned that there’s an optimal UI density — and it’s possible to be both too dense, but also too sparse. I’m reminded of that saying, “Sorry this letter is so long. I didn’t have time to make it shorter.”.
The result is a UI that feels a lot more powerful and intuitive. Patterns emerge and the app feels more familiar. Where we expected the user to choose tabs before based on arbitrary distinctions, there are now fewer choices. The UI feels more like a helpful guide than it had previously. The tradeoff, in some cases, is the number of taps to get you to your destination. In such cases, elegant shortcuts can help and even make the app feel more familiar and reduce taps.
I’m really pleased we overcame our state of denial. And I think Twitbit users will be, too.