It might seem counter-intuitive, but sometimes having too many freedoms in life can count against our ability to take action. When faced with a huge number of choices (say, on a restaurant menu) we can feel intimidated and even paralysed by indecision.
This is also true when designing user interfaces; quite often, the most successful designs are those that limit our choices to a manageable number of well considered options.
We must take the time to find out what the most important interface ‘choices’ are, and implement them with care and constant user feedback. Various techniques exist for this, but one of the very best methods is rapid prototyping. If we do this, and if we work with our end-users, we will produce interfaces that work for those users. If it works for the user, it is more likely to be accepted.
What of the other, secondary features? Well, we’re not saying to abandon them entirely, but don’t let niche features for the few pollute the overall usability of the interface for the many.
