Users should be smug, and why the Apple iPhone makes you feel smarter

Manufacturers build an awful lot of complexity into their gadgets, but very few of them take pains to hide it -- leaving users confused, bewildered and angry.

Who the heck wants to page through a 300-page instruction manual?

That kind of attitude can hurt a company's bottom line when customers return products before bothering to figure out how to use them.

It doesn't have to be that way.

MAYA Design's Mickey McManus says products should be so intuitive that a customer feels silly explaining to another how it works.

And by silly, I mean smug -- as in, "Isn't it obvious?"

That's why the Apple iPhone is so popular...it appears so obvious to use that you feel a little smug using it.

On SmartPlanet's Smart Takes blog, McManus explains why such innovation is necessary as technology grows more complex and our brains stay exactly the same. Who doesn't want to be a little smug?