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Simplicity Rules

Adam DuVander on keeping it simple

  • About Adam

Know when to hold ‘em, know when to open up

August 30, 2005 by Adam DuVander

I love the niche sites that take a theme and run with it.

Four MenWhoLookLikeKennyRogers

Men Who Look Like Kenny Rogers is a fun romp through pictures of men with white beards and slightly long grey hair.

As someone who helps run a similar site of windowed snapshots, View From My Window (VFMW), I think the Kenny site could only be helped by opening it up. Make it easy to add a photo, let people rate Kennys, leave comments, and have a way to share one particular Kenny.

A window above a door

One of the great things I’ve noticed on VFMW is how committed the users are to keeping to the theme. If someone uploads a picture that is not obviously through a window, people often ask, “where’s the window?”

Even this picture of a window above a door, which lies pretty close to the theme of the site, gets questions from users: “This picture would even work for a site named ‘view of my window,'” one commenter said.

Visitors help a site. They shape it to their collective vision, which is the point if we want them coming back.

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Simplicity Series

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  • Paradox of Choice
  • Laws of Simplicity

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