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The foundation of Apple'a current success is based on this principle -- curation of a selection of best options from a wide possible range makes buying decision

by cstross 11y ago

The foundation of Apple'a current success is based on this principle -- curation of a selection of best options from a wide possible range makes buying decisions easier for customers than giving them the whole phase space. Before Steve Jobs returned in the late 90s, Apple's Mac range was a hot mess. Apple was trying to compete with the entire range of PC manufacturers, so in addition to licensed third-party Mac clones, they were making multiple ranges of desktop Mac with overlapping specs, on the principle that they could occupy one shelf slot per machine in Fry's or Target with each model. So you had the Centris, the Performa, and the Quadra ranges, with high, middle, and low end machines in each range, educational and professional media authoring variants, and the powerbook range ... Jobs returned and priority #1 was to staunch the cash haemorrhage. Rationalizing the product range and supply chain was a huge part of this. So he drew a simple diagram. X-axis: consumer and professional. Y-axis: desktop and portable. Four models would occupy the entire grid, with roughly three specification levels in each (think Goldilocks and the Three Bears). This gave us the iBook and iMac machines (consumer), and the Powerbook and Mac Pro machines (professional), with differentiation based on CPU speed/memory/disk capacity within each cell. This made the choice of which machine to buy vastly easier on the customer; it was glaringly obvious which model you wanted, all you had to do was decide how much speed/memory/disk capacity you needed, and that was it, rather than trying to figure out what the difference was between a Centris 630 and a Quadra 630AV (hint: RGB video out, 10MHz, and about $250) and so on ... This turned the precipitous decline in Mac sales around. It took years to build up to the current powerhouse, but it staunched the arterial bleeding -- and all by giving the customers less choice, not more.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Note that these are mostly benefits for Apple, not for the consumer. As a consumer, I need a 256GB SSD and 16GB ram. My only choice is to spend $2000 on other macbook pro features I don't need. When I went with a custom PC builder instead (lots of choices - first pick the chassis, then pick the CPU, then pick the RAM, then pick the disk), I got what I needed for $1300. I don't often bill out at $700/hour (probably the total time I spent on this choice), so Apple's lack of choice certainly wouldn't have helped me.
- cobweb 11y ago
  Other companies swamp you with choice. Hotpoint washing machines come in loads of different forms. And I'm sure for most people, they don't really care. I'm not quite sure about the logic behind this. Have you a better chance of getting more products on the shop floor?
  - jameshart 11y ago
    A complicating factor is big box retailers' wish to offer a 'price match guarantee' (particularly to persuade you to bother to come in rather than to buy from Amazon), but never have to pay up on it, which leads them to carry 'retailer exclusive' models from each manufacturer, which might have a suspiciously similar specification to a model sold elsewhere, but in fact have a different model number.
- sweetdreamerit 11y ago
  Chernev 2003 distinguishes 3 types of consumers - Consumer A already chose what she wants, and she just needs to find it out. - Consumer B knows her preferences, but she needs to make the choice. - Consumer C is not aware of which attributes are important in the decision process. You are a consumer A, so this simplification did not help YOU. It did help consumers B and consumer C. http://www.hyperlabs.net/ergonomia/presentazioni/euroia11/ http://www.hyperlabs.net/ergonomia/presentazioni/euroia11/ the slides of my presentation at Euro IA 2011: Designing Interactions that Help Customers in Decision Making
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Did it help B and C? Or did it simply funnel B and C into buying a lot more computer than they needed?
    - roc 11y ago
      It did when the alternative was the entire educational process behind knowing what they need, what tradeoffs are inherent, what the price should be, what vendors provide it at the acceptable price, what drawbacks come with those other vendors, living with those drawbacks, etc. Technical people like to pretend it's the easiest thing in the world to "know" how much computer someone needs and to buy it. But if you're non-technical, all you hear is technical people saying "trust me". Which is precisely the same thing Apple is saying. And, yes, we show them lower sticker prices. But Apple has a far better track record of delivering customer satisfaction than technical people recommending beige boxes. So, for anyone with the money, why in the world would they care for two seconds about "too much computer"? "Aww shucks. I bought too much computer and loved it, instead of listening to the geeks, getting just enough, and hating it."
bko 11y ago
I don't think it was so much choice, but complexity in an organization and the associated costs. He (rightly IMO) focused on Apple's strengths and fought the bureaucratic malaise that plagues so many large organizations.
Pxtl 11y ago
It drives me nuts that none of their competitors learn this lesson. So you want to buy an Asus wifi router? http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus/asus-routers/pcmcat293200050003.c?id=pcmcat293200050003 http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus/asus-routers/pcmcat29320005... Enjoy your paralysis.
- xlm1717 11y ago
  It's only 24 options and you can filter by what you want to the left of the product listings. Each filter cuts your number of choices by more than half. Who gets paralyzed with this??
  - dangero 11y ago
    Your typical human who knows nothing about wifi technology, but knows they need a home wireless router
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    Normal people.
    - Pxtl 11y ago
      Heck, geeky people who aren't obsessively keeping up with the latest tweaks to wifi router tech.
  - 91bananas 11y ago
    Myself, CS degree and a fair amount of digital electronics knowledge.
    - eecks 11y ago
      me too, CS degree and now a software engineer.. choosing over 24 different types of routers is just crazy.
- jazzyk 11y ago
  Choice is good. It is the _presentation_ of products on the site you referenced that sucks. They should be grouped by speed, etc. "Sort By -> Customer Rating" is a very helpful filter I usually start with.
codyb 11y ago
Here in NYC where there are restaurants on every corner, one of the best ways to figure out which restaurants are the best to eat at is to look at the menus. If they have a lot of choice they'll probably attract people and be able to stay in business even if their food is mediocre. But if they only have 6-8 items on the menu, you know that menu is filled with 6-8 delicious items, because they couldn't stay in business any other way. When the market's large enough, you can get by by offering so many options that a bunch of people naturally take you up on some of them enough to maintain a profit, or you can offer a small selection of very quality items that continually please. I know which one I prefer.
- Pxtl 11y ago
  Downside is that the "6-8 items on the menu" often means "vegetarians have 1 option" and similar problems for people who have restricted diets. At the other end are the Vietnamese restaurants with 2 pages of soup where English-language names are "soup with noodles and pork" for like 4 different items.
- tbomb 11y ago
  I always look for restaurants for a limited menu for precisely this reason, and am rarely disappointed by them. on the flip side I find it a turn off when a place has a 3-4 page menu, and the food is often (but not always) mediocre.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 11y ago
  I use this method for everything. If I see a restaurant with pages and pages of options, I know that it's extremely rare for a kitchen to be able to properly manage all those dishes and make them well. Unfortunately, it leaves little room for an amazing dish because the kitchen is so busy with all the other random dishes. And it usually means they are freezing things or otherwise not using very fresh ingredients. If you have a single page menu, it usually means some very careful thought went into what went on that menu. And like others have said, those places are turning people away due to lack of choice, so if they continue to be in business with a small menu, it's usually a sign of good food. Or really great marketing/atmosphere ;)
sjg007 11y ago
You forgot the iPod!
astockwell 11y ago
Also Rails' success, and any other tools that simplify decisions by an order of magnitude or more.
arm 11y ago
“This gave us the iBook and iMac machines (consumer), and the Powerbook and Mac Pro machines (professional)” Small nitpick: the Mac Pro series didn’t exist until Apple switched over from PowerPC processors to Intel in 2006. What you meant were the PowerBook and Power Mac machines.

by cstross 11y ago

yummyfajitas 11y ago

Note that these are mostly benefits for Apple, not for the consumer. As a consumer, I need a 256GB SSD and 16GB ram. My only choice is to spend $2000 on other macbook pro features I don't need. When I went with a custom PC builder instead (lots of choices - first pick the chassis, then pick the CPU, then pick the RAM, then pick the disk), I got what I needed for $1300. I don't often bill out at $700/hour (probably the total time I spent on this choice), so Apple's lack of choice certainly wouldn't have helped me.

cobweb 11y ago
Other companies swamp you with choice. Hotpoint washing machines come in loads of different forms. And I'm sure for most people, they don't really care. I'm not quite sure about the logic behind this. Have you a better chance of getting more products on the shop floor?
- jameshart 11y ago
  A complicating factor is big box retailers' wish to offer a 'price match guarantee' (particularly to persuade you to bother to come in rather than to buy from Amazon), but never have to pay up on it, which leads them to carry 'retailer exclusive' models from each manufacturer, which might have a suspiciously similar specification to a model sold elsewhere, but in fact have a different model number.
sweetdreamerit 11y ago
Chernev 2003 distinguishes 3 types of consumers - Consumer A already chose what she wants, and she just needs to find it out. - Consumer B knows her preferences, but she needs to make the choice. - Consumer C is not aware of which attributes are important in the decision process. You are a consumer A, so this simplification did not help YOU. It did help consumers B and consumer C. http://www.hyperlabs.net/ergonomia/presentazioni/euroia11/ http://www.hyperlabs.net/ergonomia/presentazioni/euroia11/ the slides of my presentation at Euro IA 2011: Designing Interactions that Help Customers in Decision Making
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Did it help B and C? Or did it simply funnel B and C into buying a lot more computer than they needed?
  - roc 11y ago
    It did when the alternative was the entire educational process behind knowing what they need, what tradeoffs are inherent, what the price should be, what vendors provide it at the acceptable price, what drawbacks come with those other vendors, living with those drawbacks, etc. Technical people like to pretend it's the easiest thing in the world to "know" how much computer someone needs and to buy it. But if you're non-technical, all you hear is technical people saying "trust me". Which is precisely the same thing Apple is saying. And, yes, we show them lower sticker prices. But Apple has a far better track record of delivering customer satisfaction than technical people recommending beige boxes. So, for anyone with the money, why in the world would they care for two seconds about "too much computer"? "Aww shucks. I bought too much computer and loved it, instead of listening to the geeks, getting just enough, and hating it."

bko 11y ago

I don't think it was so much choice, but complexity in an organization and the associated costs. He (rightly IMO) focused on Apple's strengths and fought the bureaucratic malaise that plagues so many large organizations.

Pxtl 11y ago

It drives me nuts that none of their competitors learn this lesson. So you want to buy an Asus wifi router? http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus/asus-routers/pcmcat293200050003.c?id=pcmcat293200050003 http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus/asus-routers/pcmcat29320005... Enjoy your paralysis.

xlm1717 11y ago
It's only 24 options and you can filter by what you want to the left of the product listings. Each filter cuts your number of choices by more than half. Who gets paralyzed with this??
- dangero 11y ago
  Your typical human who knows nothing about wifi technology, but knows they need a home wireless router
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  Normal people.
  - Pxtl 11y ago
    Heck, geeky people who aren't obsessively keeping up with the latest tweaks to wifi router tech.
- 91bananas 11y ago
  Myself, CS degree and a fair amount of digital electronics knowledge.
  - eecks 11y ago
    me too, CS degree and now a software engineer.. choosing over 24 different types of routers is just crazy.
jazzyk 11y ago
Choice is good. It is the _presentation_ of products on the site you referenced that sucks. They should be grouped by speed, etc. "Sort By -> Customer Rating" is a very helpful filter I usually start with.

codyb 11y ago

Here in NYC where there are restaurants on every corner, one of the best ways to figure out which restaurants are the best to eat at is to look at the menus. If they have a lot of choice they'll probably attract people and be able to stay in business even if their food is mediocre. But if they only have 6-8 items on the menu, you know that menu is filled with 6-8 delicious items, because they couldn't stay in business any other way. When the market's large enough, you can get by by offering so many options that a bunch of people naturally take you up on some of them enough to maintain a profit, or you can offer a small selection of very quality items that continually please. I know which one I prefer.

Pxtl 11y ago
Downside is that the "6-8 items on the menu" often means "vegetarians have 1 option" and similar problems for people who have restricted diets. At the other end are the Vietnamese restaurants with 2 pages of soup where English-language names are "soup with noodles and pork" for like 4 different items.
tbomb 11y ago
I always look for restaurants for a limited menu for precisely this reason, and am rarely disappointed by them. on the flip side I find it a turn off when a place has a 3-4 page menu, and the food is often (but not always) mediocre.
eeeeeeeeeeeee 11y ago
I use this method for everything. If I see a restaurant with pages and pages of options, I know that it's extremely rare for a kitchen to be able to properly manage all those dishes and make them well. Unfortunately, it leaves little room for an amazing dish because the kitchen is so busy with all the other random dishes. And it usually means they are freezing things or otherwise not using very fresh ingredients. If you have a single page menu, it usually means some very careful thought went into what went on that menu. And like others have said, those places are turning people away due to lack of choice, so if they continue to be in business with a small menu, it's usually a sign of good food. Or really great marketing/atmosphere ;)

sjg007 11y ago

You forgot the iPod!

astockwell 11y ago

Also Rails' success, and any other tools that simplify decisions by an order of magnitude or more.

arm 11y ago

“This gave us the iBook and iMac machines (consumer), and the Powerbook and Mac Pro machines (professional)” Small nitpick: the Mac Pro series didn’t exist until Apple switched over from PowerPC processors to Intel in 2006. What you meant were the PowerBook and Power Mac machines.