Technology introduction – Will grandma use it?

I was on a cruise this past week when I learned that Steve Jobs had died. I watched a short news story that tried to discuss why he was such an important figure in technology but I think they completely missed the mark.

New technologies need to pass the grandma test: if the average grandma couldn’t figure it out or just plain wouldn’t use it, it’s likely not going to be successful. Whether you think Apple products are aesthetically pleasing or not, the majority of their design focuses on simplicity; I think this is the essence of their success.

While on the ship almost everything works through a single plastic card with a magnetic stripe and a single bar code: room access, payments for purchases, and tracking ingress and egress. Everybody seems to handle this well, even grandma. There are more advanced things you can do with the card like balance tracking on your in-room TV and modifying information on an interactive touchscreen kiosk. The fact that the card does almost everything and is simple to use is why it’s a winner. The fact that more advanced users have the option for further use makes it even better.

This is exactly what someone at Apple likely figured out. If you cater to the widest possible audience by making something so powerful easy to use you’re almost guaranteed success. The pair of 80 somethings talking about sending picture messages and using cell phone video conferencing is certainly evidence of this. Make it simple, make it powerful, try to manufacture it fast enough to keep up with demand.