Simple Things Make Me Happy

I often go to a drive-thru, whether it’s to order food or my favorite coffee, whenever I finish ordering I always say “Thank you”.  I think this is an important thing to do.  What makes me really happy is the 1 out of 5 (maybe 10) times the person says “You’re welcome”.

This simple statement makes me happy; it’s a really great way to start my day.

There are of course many other examples of simple things that make me happy, as a parent for example, I watch my kids on an almost daily (even hourly) basis learn new things.  This is turn makes me really happy and it’s always the simplest things that they learn.

I feel like this is an important trait that also applies to the world I live in: web application or web game development.  Simple things make me happy.

If you learn one new thing today, try to keep this in mind.  When you or someone is thinking of the “next big thing” or a great new feature to add, break it down into its simplest form.  How can I execute this easily?  Is this specific piece of functionality to complicated, if yes, is it worth it?  How do I know people will like it?

These examples can be seen on a regular basis on our most successful websites worldwide.  Look at Twitter for example.  Is there anything complex happening on that site?  Absolutely nothing (from a user’s standpoint); there is of course a lot of complexities from a scalability standpoint.  How about Instagram, Pinterest; you share photos and view photos; it doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Switching from websites to games, how about Candy Crush Saga, this is probably one of the most popular social games (at the time of writing) and my god; it’s just Bejewelled with some very simple gamification features.  Simple!

So the next time you here about the greatest, most complex idea ever, stop and rethink, how can I simplify this because simple things make me happy (and are easy to execute).