The “Jacks of All Trade” Heuristic

Before smartphones, there was the iPod, but long before the iPod, in the 1970s, a revolutionary new device was the Sony Walkman.

The inventor of the Walkman, Sony co-founder Akio Morita, set out to build a music listening device, inspired by his co-founder Masaru Ibuka who wanted to listen to full-length operas during his flights between Tokyo and the US. He was not discouraged by early market research, where the idea was met with little interest, as people could not imagine walking around with music in their heads.

When the engineers presented their working prototype to Morita, they were very proud of not only succeeding in achieving what Morita asked them to create, a miniature stereo cassette player, but they also managed to include a record function. But, to their surprise, Morita asked them to remove that function. All logic would indicate that adding such a significant extra for only $1 of extra cost is a great idea, but Morita repeatedly vetoed the recording button.

Morita believed that adding the recording function would confuse people of what this new device was for: was it for dictation, should they record concerts they attend, should they record their music onto them. So, by removing the record functionality, it made the Walkman do one single thing. It clarified what the device was for and maximized its chance of mass-adoption.

The “Jacks of All Trade” heuristic makes people assume that something that does one single thing is better than something that claims to do a lot of things.

Another more recent example is Google. Unlike its main competitor at the time, Yahoo, Google launched without a homepage full of widgets like weather or news, but a single action: search. That made it clear to the user what Google was good at and made people assume that it was much better for search than everything else.

In both cases, a clear single-purpose for the product conveyed that the product is excellent at that one thing.

Application in eCommerce

Every market has its Amazon, an enormous company that appears to sell anything and everything and posts record earnings every year. How can one compete with Amazon?

The answer is by specialization: Amazon sells everything, so their shop is designed and optimized to sell everything. The latest $4000 OLED TV looks the same as a $20 book or a $5 box of chocolates.

Your selection is much narrower, so that allows you to speak to your audience in a much more focused way.

If you are selling luxury apparel, designing your user experience to resemble Omega or Cartier will make your customer much more excited about a potential purchase and give you an advantage over the “Jacks of All Trade” of the market.

The same thing applies if you are selling electronics or coffee machines for enthusiasts: you can present your products in a more attractive and documented way and, along with your products, also sell your experience in curating and describing your catalog. Maybe, with your shop, customers can relax in the thought that whatever they choose, it will be of good quality.

Like early days Google and Walkman did, you too should embrace specialization and focus on customer experience to increase your conversion and do what others can not.