Apple has done a lot of things right over the years, but their focus on elimination is one of their greatest strengths. While that has perhaps faded a bit in recent years, it’s a huge reason why they’re such a successful company.
In Walter Isaacson’s book “Steve Jobs“, he explains Jobs’ focus very simply:
He made devices simpler by eliminating buttons, software simpler by eliminating features, and interfaces simpler by eliminating options.
It’s much easier said than done. If people want another feature, the default response is to add it to the product and Apple works hard to avoid doing that. In my recent move from Android back to the iPhone, this is still quite evident. While the phones are more similar today than they’ve ever been, the iPhone still wins when it comes to simplicity. This is a bit frustrating at times, but it’s a big reason why they sell so well.
Sometimes you need to add more features to your product to help it sell, but often the better action is to remove features to make it more accessible to everyone.
I’d like to add a caveat … do your research before removing buttons and whatnot. Ensure that your audience hasn’t gotten used to using a particular feature before getting rid of it for sake of UX/UI. There are many ways to track click throughs. eg: in Google mail, for many years, we had a swoosh icon to select to forward an email, now we have two sets of three-dot menus; one has the forward option, other doesn’t.
Yes, very good point! You can cause big problems if you’re not careful.