To simplify something, you have to remove things that have been built up over time and that your employees or customers are already used to. Sometimes it's too risky to remove things that are tightly woven into the organization, product, or system.
However, there are examples of successful simplification. I'd like to share one such example that I recently came across, which inspired me to write this.
<aside> 🛒 Part 1 “The Key to Radical Simplicity” explores the notion of simplification along with a guide to design for radical simplification
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At Tesla HQ in Palo Alto. April 2014
In April 2014, I had an amazing opportunity to visit the Tesla HQ. It’s an experience I will never forget because it showed me what the future holds and I got an insider look at how that future was being built.
I met an engineer working on the Tesla battery firmware. He explained how his software was deployed over the air to the test car in the parking lot 🤯 Until that time, I had only considered mobile phones to work that way. In that moment, it clicked that the Tesla was a computer on wheels.
We drove up the Stanford hills (in this picture) and the car 🚘 took off like a rocket 🚀. That acceleration was unforgetable!
Since that day, I knew I wanted a Tesla! Fast forward several years later and now I have two! Those who know me might wonder if I work for the Tesla sales team…
We all do. We need keys because we have locks. We have locks because we need to secure things. We secure things to feel safe or guard against anxiety that something will be taken away. Because we have keys (usually several), we have keychains. Then pockets and purses to hold them. You get the idea.
With the digitization of things, the physical is slowly starting to disappear and reappear as an app. But it still requires bold thinking and the ability to reimagine - or else it’s awkward and more complicated with the introduction of multiple modalities. The capabilities now exist to take bolder steps if one is bold in their thinking.
<aside> 🛒 For example, take a grocery shopping experience:
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The first thing you’ll experience with a Tesla is that there isn’t a key. At least not in the traditional sense. To appreciate it, let’s look at what Simplified looked it.
I bought a new car 3 years ago - a Honda hybrid. It had keys, but offered a pseudo keyless experience. You needed the physical key / keyfob in your pocket. There was no keyhole inside the car, but you had to press a button to start the car. The door had a keyhole though. When I walked away from the car, it self-locked. I thought it was pretty neat!
Two years later, I sold that car and bought a Tesla. That’s when I really experienced radical simplification! Among many innovative features, there’s no key…
It’s not just that there’s no key. There’s no keyhole on the door. There’s no keyhole in the car. There’s no start button in the car. There’s no keyfob to carry in my pocket.
There’s no “start the car” experience (it autostarts when the door opens).