Hank Williams takes on those who question change in his newest post entitled “Nothing is New”

But the larger issue is that almost invariably, with any new product there are people that will say “we have been doing that for years.”

I find these people fascinating.

It’s the kind of people that claimed that C was not new because they had been programming in assembler for years. It is the people who claimed there was no need for graphical operating systems because we already had the “oh so much better” command line. It is the people (like cmdrTaco on Slashdot) who claimed that there was no difference between the iPods and the earliest music generation.

I think there’s a larger point here and I think it’s one of the most important points in product design.

To my eyes the average person’s life doesn’t change all that much from product generation to product generation.  Successful products are those that build on their immediate predecessor and in doing so fit into the user’s existing world view.  But over time those incremental improvements in products are what lead to significant changes in people’s lives.

So take the music example.  At first the radio was a huge device that took several pieces of equipment and which was too big to be carried around.  But as soon radios got small enough to carry around people inevitably took them places.  Which is when you got “boom boxes” with handles to allow them to easily be carried.  Then came walkmans which allowed you to carry your music in a much smaller package and that eventually led to iPods which allow you to carry all your music around in an even smaller package. 

So while Mr. Williams is right in pointing out the dramatic difference between the “earliest music generation” and an iPod  it should be noted that the change happened in incremental steps with each step making a small improvement over the one that preceded it. 

This distinction is the difference between the “revolutionary product that’s ahead of it’s time but which never gets widely adopted” and the product that takes the world by storm.   To put it in tech terms it’s Windows 3.1 vs. the Original Mac.  The Original Mac was far superior but Windows 3.1’s incremental approach is what won the day.  Then Microsoft continually implemented small improvements to Windows which allowed them to beat a vastly superior product for decades.

So while the people who claim things never change might be annoying they’re also a good indicator that you’re on the right track.  Because what they’re sensing is the fact that your product fits into the average user’s existing knowledge base and that’s exactly where you want to be.