Twitter's Simplicity Could Draw Those with Technophobia to the Internet

As dull and inconsequential as some people think Twitter is (yours truly being somewhere in the middle of the argument), its sheer simplicity is what's making the honchos at Twitter seem so brilliant. Simple tools given to people who then use their own life, business or imagination to make it something more complex is one of the smartest cyberspace business moves made since the internet's earliest boom. As much as we stamp the word "Technophobia" to someone over the age of 65, there's actually a lot more people much younger that have a hard time figuring how to make a social network site work to the fullest advantage. When you're a busy 20 or 30 something who's trying to figure out how to decorate their MySpace or Facebook page, it can turn someone off from even bothering to start one.

Twitter understood that many people don't have a natural affinity for web design and don't have time to go searching out places to create a unique design on their social network page. When you can get a pre-packaged page that suits everybody and allows you to get to work immediately doing your networking via simple blog posts, it's really no wonder so many people have gravitated there. The media, though, thinks that it's addictive only because it's supposedly fun to blog about the mundane things you're doing during a day. Ditto to reading friends and strangers Tweeting about the same thing.

As with a lot of playthings that seem appealing, those with more sophisticated tastes may get bored with Twitter after the fad wears off. For those who like the simplicity of things online, they'll likely stick around and get the best use out of the site. Because I'd wager money there's more out there who like simplicity on the net than those who don't, the chances are good you'll be seeing all future websites creating ultra simple designs that anybody of the smallest intelligence can use. The same might happen to existing sites that don't get visited often by the Technophobes because they're afraid of getting lost.

Of course, the main goal of most websites that depend on customers to stay alive is to create a design that's user-friendly. Try as those websites may, I'm always running into people who can't figure out certain things, mainly from clutter on a web page and not being able to find a particular icon to click to take you to a certain page. Amazon.com, for instance, used to be a very simple design with easy processes in finding things and then purchasing them. In the last ten years, though, they've progressively become more complex in the services they offer--hence bringing crowded pages loaded with a million links and icons. For a first-time user (and you're always going to find someone who hasn't used Amazon yet), it's not out of the question they'd get confused on how to buy something there with their credit card.

Fortunately, search engines have always kept it simple in how to search for something, other than the actual results sometimes being a jumble. Google is part of the internet lexicon even people up in their elder years understand. According to statistics, however, some of those older people are managing to figure out Facebook lately and building pages there to connect with their friends and family. Nobody knows for sure if perhaps their grandchildren are setting it up for them, but there isn't any way to tell. When an older person has a page there, it counts in all the statistical round-ups.

Because Twitter is nothing but writing a terse, one-line blog and not much else every fifteen minutes, and because it'll likely be bought out eventually by a stronghold such as Yahoo, the chances of seeing extreme simplicity across the net could take simplicity to a heightened level.
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Those used to a cluttered internet and not minding a little complexity on websites to provide more of a fulfilling experience may carp at the idea of extreme simplicity spreading across the cyber universe. With Technophobia being much more diffuse than any of us bargained for, that extreme simplicity may just be a must for any business thriving on the net. We may eventually see a blueprint of making everything happen with the click of one simple icon or two rather than complicated directions of going to multiple web pages to do the same. Amazon.com already offers the one-click feature to buy something instantly if your credit card and address info is already in their database. Yet they could still simplify by providing one icon dealing with your shipping preferences rather than having to go into a separate area to do that.

Along with more streamlined checkout simplicity at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and all other online stores, don't be surprised to see social network sites follow the Twitter way of design as everybody starts closing down their MySpace and Facebook accounts to Tweet their life away. Expect to see even simpler ways to create a design on MySpace without having to travel to their affiliated sites where typing in code is necessary just to get a background on one's page. The ability to choose a complete design all in one little box that involves a one-click way to post it would bring in all those Technophobes by the dozens who've been contemplating starting a page there for years.

And despite Facebook still being popular, don't be surprised to see them simplify things to the extreme to stave off those increased older users heading over to Twitter instead. Their way of setting up a design currently works the same way as MySpace where typing in HTML code confuses the hell out of those who don't have time to think about anything else.

The only drawback to all this is the skeptics who say that if you don't know how to use basic HTML or know how to set up a basic design on MySpace, then you shouldn't be on the net. That kind of thinking is what loses business when customers shouldn't be expected to know anything in order to do something on the net. Unfortunately, this places online businesses and social network sites in a quandary when trying to explain how to do something through text only confuses some users more.

In evolution, we're supposed to be evolving into more complex people. Yet we may eventually look back at the internet and see that it devolved and took the KISS principle (Keep it Simple, Stupid) to its fullest meaning. Even those who don't mind complexity on websites wouldn't complain if simpler ideas and functions shaves several minutes off the clock to do something other than...well, Tweeting...