Why The Simplest Product Wins?

15k consumer voices across 9 countries form the Global Brand Simplicity Index. This research, conducted by Siegel+Gale, explains why the simplest product wins. They assembled a portfolio of the simplest brands and ranked them against common indexes since 2009. Today, it is a staggering 1,600% better performance for the simplest products.

The most striking number, though, is the amount of revenues lost by companies that do not prioritize simplicity in their business – $780 billion.

So why the simplest product wins. According to consumer voices in this research:

• 64% consumers would pay more for a simple solution;
• 78% would recommend a brand if it is simple.

However, you might also wonder why simplicity did not significantly impact performance from 2009 through 2017, but it started to matter in 2019 and onwards. In short, this suggests that as complexity in the world grows, an increasing number of consumers are opting for simpler solutions. One of the root causes is COVID, which forced people to move from offline to online environments. In the years 2009-2017, while being in the office, if a person had to learn one extra digital tool for their work, they just did, however complex it was, and there was always someone around to ask. Overall, simplicity did not have any strategic value back then. But when the number of tools exploded, digital overwhelm kicked in, and all that cloud SaaS services skyrocketed – simplicity became a core strategic advantage and a must-have.

So, whether you are just thinking about launching your business or have a business that needs a stronger bottom line, simplifying user experiences is key. 

In this article, we’ll take you through customer touchpoints and feature selection in MVP development when it comes to building the simplest product that wins.

Simplicity Touchpoints across your Solution during MVP development

Howard Belk of Siegel & Gale, in a Telegraph article, said:

“Brands that offer simpler customer experiences are rewarded with passionate customer loyalty, more innovative employees and greater revenue. In short, embracing simplicity improves the bottom line for brands and organisations.”

In this research, simplicity is measured through the eyes of the consumers. So, in pursuing the answer to why the simplest product wins, it is about achieving the top simplicity on the client side – user interface, user experience, and brand. With that in mind, user journeys with outlined touchpoints become a core tool to find ways to improve and outperform others. You can map out your customer journey solution and then measure it against the pre-made and already benchmarked ones. 

Touchpoints for social media networks: why the simplest product wins

The existing solutions often include users going through the following touchpoints:

1. Becoming aware of a new social network;
2. Landing on an app, registration, and creating a profile;
3. Seeing content from other users;
4. Creating and editing your content/posts;
5. Engaging with the likes/views/comments under your posts;
6. App notifications and recommendations to explore new content;
7. Scrolling through content;
8. Shopping on the social network;
9. Solving a problem via interaction with online help or support;
10. Deleting your profile.

Below, these touchpoints are displayed by their level of complexity/simplicity (as evaluated by customers) and divided into three broader categories: pre-touchpoints, touchpoints, and post-touchpoints.

Of course, the above-mentioned are broader labels. If we talk about MVP development, here are the features that correspond to each touchpoint:

Touchpoint	What feature users interact with	Simplicity Score
1	ads, word of mouth, social media mentions, app store listing	47%
2	Sign up, social sign up, onboarding, profile set up wizard	85%
3	News feed, content interaction interface	70%
4	Create a post, edit a post	80%
5	Post analytics	50%
6	Notifications, pop-ups, pings, in-app recommendations	73%
7	Search bar, explore feed, saved collections, watch lists, tag systems	100%
8	In-app store, embedded product pages, and other shopping capabilities	90%
9	Help center, F.A.Q., community support, chatbot, tickets	0%
10	Profile deactivation	40%

Now, let’s explain what the main barriers to simplicity are for each touchpoint. This will ensure that, in answering why the simplest product wins, you can select features that provide much-needed simplicity for users.

1 Raising awareness in a simple way

This is a pre-touchpoint, and the marketing team is often responsible for it. However, when it comes to MVP development, the marketing team uses the artifacts from the discovery phase. They rely on user interviews and the results of launching MVOs (minimum viable offers). Advertised value has to be aligned with the resulting core MVP functionality.

At present, users on average estimate this point at 47%. For them, it can be hard to understand the messaging of social network apps. In addition, there are things like overpromising in ads, ad fatigue, vague value propositions, and trust issues.

2 Signing up

There are quite a few simple solutions, such as deferred sign-up, social sign-up, short onboarding, and autofill options. It is essential to highlight that simplicity here often takes a lot of work behind the scenes. For instance, some development agencies might bravely suggest dropping onboarding altogether. However, onboarding helps to curb the churn of users. In fact, strong onboarding eliminates 90% of churn. On the other hand, complex and convoluted onboarding leads to 72% users churning. Then, also in terms of paying users, if onboarding is presented as a checklist, it is likely to generate 3 times more paying customers.

Sometimes, when trying to answer why the simplest product wins, even experienced developers might go to the extreme of cutting the features mercilessly, while even a lean MVP development is about doing fewer but high-impact features. And when the feature is retaining 90% of users and converting 3x more to paying ones, it is definitely worth doing.  

3 Engaging new users with existing content

The lower score here can be a result of too many engagement options, social anxiety, inconsistency, content overrun with bots, promoted content, non-relevant recommendations, overstimulating, and socially performative feeds that feel like pressure. The ability to provide better and more enjoyable selection to reduce friction includes solutions like:

• Keeping only a few metrics visible (Instagram makes some metrics private);
• Offering a handle to opt out of some content;
• Ensuring a mix of aspirational, fun, and promotional context requires content curation logic, feed ranking algorithms, and a content tagging system;
• Ability to toggle results based on relevance versus recency;
• Contextual cues as to why a user is seeing certain content, etc.

Often, AI/ML algorithms are making the news feed more efficient, yet they still require correction when it comes to providing balance. Without human oversight, this technology overoptimizes the content, leading to the above-mentioned plagues like overstimulation, ranking socially-performative posts first, promoted content, etc. This touchpoint is an illustration that answering why the simplest product wins is not about behind-the-scenes simplicity after all.

4 Creating and editing posts

Here, simplicity is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, a platform would want to provide a wealth of ways to express yourself and connect with others. On the other hand, this is a source of complexity. So, on the negative side, there are too many post formats, and editing tools can be complex. Moreover, each format has its own algorithm for reaching users, such as LinkedIn. All this can lead to decision paralysis.

On the simplicity side, there are features such as one-tap access, a variety of templates, and autofilling, AI suggestions, drafts, and scheduled posting, as well as a casual format for content to remove paralysing strive for perfectionism.

5 Post analytics: can it aid in understanding why the simplest product wins

On the simplicity side, there are analytics displayed under the post and in tool-tips. However, often a post has additional reactions, saves, clicks, and there is often limited possibility to piece it together with DM messages, for instance. In addition, there are paywalled dashboard-style analytics, and redirection to different screens can be extremely confusing. Moreover, some analytics are not explained. For instance, “seen by X people” – does it mean they scrolled through it quickly or really looked? Did they visit the account or see it on the feed?

After all, social networks grow because of the financial opportunities that come with gaining your audience. In this case, the simpler you can make the process of analyzing the impact, the higher the user satisfaction will be.

6 Notifications

This has been significantly improved with the following simplicity-creating features: ping groupings (e.g., 20 people liked your post instead of 20 pings), added contextual cues explaining why a user gets a ping, and controls for pings and notifications.

The major problem lies with recommendations that can be over-pressuring, manipulative, or irrelevant. In addition, some platforms still have settings and controls placed inconveniently.

7 Content exploration

Compared to feeds, search capabilities and saved lists feel like tools that a user completely controls. Simplicity here lies in giving the user power. So, explore feeds feel like a tool following the user’s intent.

8 Shopping/monetization

The low point is that still in some cases, redirection is required to the external marketplaces and shops. However, embedded product pages and in-feed shops drastically simplify the UX in this aspect.

9 App support – is this why the simplest product wins

For social networks, app support is virtually nonexistent. The major problems are long waits if it is present in some form, generic answers, and almost zero chance of reaching human support. However, in the age when emotional wellbeing is being prioritized, it is only the human app support that can handle complex harassment cases, nuanced policy violations, and assist users in emotional distress.

10 Deleting your profile

Many platforms still choose to hide this feature, providing confusing names such as Deactivate vs Delete. In addition, complexity and negative experience come from:

• fail to implement GDPR compliance, 
• deletion is often impossible on mobile – available only through the web, 
• added obstacles like email verification, impossible captcha, 
• guilt-tripping language, 
• alternative recommendation “Take a break”, and 
• reactivation traps.

You can check out our article “How to Build a Social Media App” for more insight on functionality, vaidation, and iterations following the lean MVP development methodology.

User Journey Touchpoints: Contained (social network app) vs Distributed (healthcare solution)

Social network was a contained example – everything except for the first step happens on the app, while even pre-touchpoints come from the owned MVP development process. In this case, you have full ownership of the user experience and can optimize it for seconds, consistency, and whatnot. 

Touchpoints for healthcare user journey: why the simplest product wins

Let’s contrast it with the touchpoints for a healthcare user journey. It starts when we realize the need, such as experiencing a symptom, till we are hopefully successfully following a treatment plan. The touchpoints are:

1. identifying if your health situation requires a doctor’s appointment;
2. understanding what may be covered under your insurance;
3. finding the right doctor for your needs;
4. booking a doctor’s appointment;
5. preparing for a medical visit;
6. navigating the health facility and checking in;
7. discussing your health situation with a medical professional;
8. understanding diagnosis and treatment options;
9. receiving and booking a referral;
10. fulfilling a prescription;
11. understanding your medical bill;
12. paying for your medical costs;
13. adhering to your doctor’s recommendations/plan for your health;
14. using health websites/mobile app.

You can see their simplicity levels for each touchpoint below. 

What important is that the healthcare user journey is a distributed experience. This means that:

• A touchpoint may require its own solution (e.g., understanding a medical bill with Goodbill or Cedar app);
• A solution may contain several touchpoints (any telemedicine solution, like Teledoc);
• A touchpoint may require several solutions (e.g., adhering to a doctor’s recommendation may require a medication reminder app, a pharmacy autorefill app, and a chronic disease management app). 

And in any case, the simplicity of your solution should factor in how it fits into this journey, such as:

1. Determine the handoff points – from which step the user is coming from and what is the next one;
2. Keep relevant references to other touchpoints outside your app solution;
3. Provide integrations with touchpoints via API when possible;
4. Accept the fact that you may need to cater to offline experiences and unstructured data from those.

In our article “Top HealthTech Startups: Innovation Driving the Future of Healthcare”, you can see the variety of innovative healthcare startups.

Final Words

Simplicity in the eyes of the user might require a lot of complexity behind the scenes, be it tagging systems, AI/ML algorithms with human oversight, or catering for unstructured data from physical doctor consultations. However, as the world and specifically online environments get complex with a myriad of tools, simplicity becomes a much-valued commodity and answers the question of why the simplest product wins. Within MVP app development, there are many ways to implement one touchpoint with varying degrees of simplicity. Features like onboarding can significantly boost user retention and conversion from free to paid. There are researched best practices to maximize the outcome, and strong onboarding often means simple 3 to 5 steps, and the fewer the better.

FAQ: Why The Simplest Product Wins?