Smarts or Interface

So this week I am debating whether effort is better spent on improving the smarts/AI or improving the interface. Both can be very important, Apple's iTunes is a good example of a program that has both. It allows you to do a lot of things with your songs, and with it's genius playlists, it can recommend music that you might like. It also has a pretty good user interface, allowing you categorize music and sort it based on many different factors. Although smarts help, I think the user interface is more important

Better smarts in a program like iTunes or Netflix can help you find songs that you might like. In others like Google, they can help answer your questions or suggest something else you might need("Did you mean?"). However, iTunes not only helps you find music you might like, they also help you find music you might buy. And Apple hopes that you will buy from them. Therefore, better smarts can lead to more songs you find that you like, and more songs you buy from them, resulting in bigger profits. Usually smarts help the user and the developer.

A user interface is something every program/website has. Something for the user to interact with. Whether it's buttons, links, or something else, it needs to be intuitive and easy to use. If people can't find what they want, they won't come back to your site or they won't use your program. The smarts should come later. If Google had a great search method, but nobody could find the search box on their website, they wouldn't use it. And if people cannot easily find the features and settings they want in a program, many give up easily.

Therefore, I think time and effort is better spent on a user interface. The first time people use a program or website, it is usually for a certain purpose. If it doesn't work for that person, they most likely won't use it again. But after a good interface is implemented, smarts can help customers return by helping them find other things or just improving an existing process.