Why did you add this button?
I recently stumbled upon this Dilbert comic and it really hits the nail on the head. In most companies the people in charge don’t really care about the user experience on their site. They know their sites are important, but they don’t put themselves in their user’s shoes. When these executives decide to add a new feature or change a feature to better align it with a company centric goal they sabotage the real people who will eventually be using their site.
They get so caught up in the business objectives for the addition that they forget about the details. They forget that filling out a 3 page checkout form is annoying or that having to resubmit your login 5 times because you didn’t see the little * is amazingly frustrating.
Adding more “stuff” is usually the wrong thing to do. It increases clutter, reduces readability, and dilutes the page of its purpose. We are always looking to reduce the buttons on the screen, reduce the number of words on the screen, and reduce the number of forms to fill out. While everyone else looks for things to add, we are always looking for ways to subtract, making uSnacks easier and more fun to use.