Amazon has a patent on One-Click technology. There are often differing views on whether this should be allowed. One view is “that’s so obvious how can you possibly patent that.” The other is that One-Click is such a magic step forward that it does deserve a patent.
Amazon is charging ahead with this principle. It’s old news but you should check out Amazon Dash. They are not the only ones though. My favourite product to follow this design principle is SONOS, with their Play Speakers.
SONOS advertises features such as multi-room setup and control from an app. But for me the killer feature is “One-Click” Play. With other speakers you can easily connect your phone via bluetooth. But just look at the steps when you come back home and want some music.
- Unlock phone
- Choose Music App
- Change speaker to bluetooth
- Start your music
So, OK, a whole four steps is a real first world problem. But with SONOS, you walk up to the elegantly designed speaker and click the “Play” button and it continues your playlist from where you last left off.
The difference between 2-4 steps and 1 really is magical. So…
- If you’re designing software, take a step back and analyse the process to see if you can reduce the number of steps for key processes.
- Review how you use your bookmarks. Adding a mini menu bar reduces a click. Review your top level bookmarks and top level directories. If these are setup you’ll probably be able to switch tasks faster. As you can get your key pages back you can close more tabs and reduce clutter.
- Review the apps on the homepage of your phone. It’s a simple thing. But again, spend 10 minutes doing it now and you’ll save a lot of time over the week.
One-Click is magical. How can you use this principle to make your daily tasks more productive?
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