Comments on: Simplicity: The Distribution of Complexity

By: mellis

mellis — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

You misspelled “Maeda.”

By: arouben

arouben — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It seems that it is challenging to create devices that look simple to the customer and are in fact simple to use. I have a feeling that most people that are not familiar with usability and design believe that a device with fewer buttons is easier to use and is less intimidating. Well, it is true in some cases, consider an IPod. In many other cases a few buttons mean several modes (as mentioned earlier by the author), which can be tricky. I am just thinking that would be interesting to test user perceptions by presenting interface with the same functionality but with different number of buttons (interface with few buttons would be actually harder to use). The users should respond just by looking at both interfaces without using them. Maybe, the findings would show that simple interfaces are deceiving but customers are willing to buy them because they look simple and slick.

By: dshen

dshen — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

First I’d like to say that simplicity is really nice and helps usability and adoption of a product.

But, the unfortunate thing is that product teams and development are often run by people who try to compete on features, and ultimately in order to build a better product you keep adding stuff. Examples:

MS Word. OK I think it’s BIG ENOUGH now. Stop adding more menu items!

Yahoo! Finance: Are there enough links on the nav bar yet? Is there enough content on the page? Why not stuff some more and we’ll be better right?

An AIWA Walkman clone I owned: It had literally 20 extra little buttons on it, ranging from auto-reverse to selecting the type of tape (ie. Chrome, Metal, etc.). I just wanted to press play and stop!

The problem with adding features is that in the easy sense, you end up increasing complexity and reducing usability. A harder challenge is to add functionality but make a product SIMPLER.

Note that I change my wording from “features” to “functionality”. Features, to me, seem like more discrete things added. Functionality, to me, means the product gets more powerful in a more overall, holistic sense.

That leads to potentially reaching a limit on the amount of “features” a product can have, and definitely a limit to the value of adding yet another button, or menu item, or the 51st link on a nav bar of 50 links. A new solution is called for.

I think Abstraction and Experience Overall are two possible solutions. Abstraction in the sense of rising above the inidividual features and looking at higher level ways to think about the task(s) in different ways. Experience Overhaul means just that; you may (painfully) need to scrap everything and just start over and reorchestrate the user experience and design to contain all the things you know people want to do, but start from the ground up to make the whole thing simpler.

By: trog

trog — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

By: designitsimple

designitsimple — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

From my experience complexity sometimes is due to the customer. @David: Sure, Microsoft does add features and features and therefore makes the application more complex. I’ve developed an Excel-Access based application that did one thing very good. It was simple. However, I was asked if it could do this and that. Then I did implement some additional features but not all because they would have made it a lot harder to keep it simple.

To me, keeping someting simple starts with the feature list. Reduce it as much as possible and stay focused. I’d rather have 4 apps each doing one thing perfect that 1 doing 4 things acceptable.

By: nathanshedroff

nathanshedroff — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The problem here is mistaking Simplicity for Clarity, something Richard Saul Wurman has been distinguishing for, what, 20 years? Simplicity is about limiting data, information, and choices. This is, usually, counter-productive for true understanding, especially for experts. Simplicity is probably only relevant for absolute novices. Most of the time, we need more clear information and choices and it is only because most people lack the necessary organizational, verbal, (and often) visual skills to make things clear that cutting out choices is usually the direction taken. For designers of all stripes, simplicity is a mistaken approach, and often one that leads to poorer solutions and offerings, not better ones. For example, practically no one today would be happy living a simple life. However, almost everyone is striving toward a more clear one.

Also, if there is a “simplicity party” at all, it certainly didn’t start last year.

By: singh

singh — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

who said, simplicity is only for insects. what did I say, simplicity is not the issue , the issue is utility. Things are made (rather marketable things) are developed not because they are simple, but because they are useful. Moreover simple is only an abeeration . Look at a car. We only press a lever and the car zooms, but look at the grind, and the slime, and the oil well, and iron ore mountain that made the car possible. We don’t want simple or complex lives, we want useful lives. So utility is is. http://www.searchbox.mobi

By: quinn_dupont

quinn_dupont — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The question that Tannen is ultimately posing is: “simple for whom?” Apple Inc. is often lauded as being makers of “simple” (and the cognate “elegant”) software and hardware. Yet, as any Mac fan knows, (at the best of times) the product is only simple from one perspective, typically the lowest common denominator. Crack open the Terminal in OS X and the experience becomes decidedly not simple, but that is the point. Power users need “advanced” features, and this requires a tradeoff of simplicity (although even here there are ways of improving the situation). This same problem occurs in the LIS world when journal database vendors offer a variety of search interfaces: simple, expert, advanced, etc. This is a design feature that is too infrequently implemented—its a sort of “mode switching”. Azureus, the Bittorrent client with its own problems (Java application? Ugh), effectively uses this principle of mode switching. I happen to be a “simple” Bittorrent user, since I mostly leach (and share), but I never create torrents or use special BT trackers. The interface is thus very simple. Mode switching like this should become common, since it doesn’t slow down any legitimate power users, but gets the newbies rolling quickly. There are also other ancillary benefits: segregating the processes can be more cost effective. For example, why have a $50,000/year ALA-accredited librarian standing behind the circulation desk? This is never done because the sorts of tasks that occur at the circulation desk can be easily handled by an $8.00/hour student. Its common sense, but when the design principle is kept in mind its effects are wide-ranging. More is said here: http://iqdupont.com/blog/?p=116 .

By: weston

weston — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

In _Envisioning Information_, Tufte wrote, “to clarify, add detail” (p.37). I’m a great lover of the notion of simplifying things (posters, traffic configurations, web pages, apps, radios) to make them more useful and more usable. So this comment from Tufte really grabbed me. It has probably made me think more than any other Tufte comment. I keep it mind when I am advocating to simplify a page by removing features or details. It makes me think critically about when it really helps to strip away. Granted, I may not be able to provide the data density and the micro/macro that Tufte loves about something like the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, but it’s good to remember that _it depends_.

I also think Norman’s notion that complexity sells has some power to it. Maybe this is related to our “reptilian minds”?? The reptilian mind recognizes that people say they want X (appeals to cortex) but in practice seek out Z because it speaks to their reptilian mind. So, you can’t just listen to what people say.

Can I spin this back around to Norman who points that people will buy the gadget with more features (complexity)? Sure, even if people buy the more complex thing, it doesn’t mean they like using it or can use it more effectively. So (1) recognize the reptilian pull and design for it on one level (to get people into your product) but also (2) understand what makes for the actual best user experience once inside the product and give that to them. There may be appearances of complexity at play alongside carefully designed simplicity.

Whoa, I am giving myself a headache…. Now if I can only show how this relates to Tufte’s comment that I started with: Maybe it’s the balance/relationship of the macro/micro readings at work.

By: p2pvoice

p2pvoice — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

How would Michael Hartmann explain the current trend in cell phones – cramming more functions in a handheld device that must maintain a small size – and be very successful at that. I say successful because if they were wrong, consumers wouldn’t be buying their products in hundreds of millions around the world. @Michael: “I’d rather have 4 apps each doing one thing perfect that 1 doing 4 things acceptable” is the way I used to think just a few years ago. If we followed this principle, I would have to carry 4 separate devices as soon as get away from my “base” location. Few years ago, I just wanted a good “cell phone” so that I could make and receive telephone calls – simply. But today, I can do that with with a smartphone and listen to hi-fi music, take very decent pictures, have my contacts, calender, to-do; get my emails, and even surf the web. The available technology allows more functionality to be added in a way that is simple to use.

My point: How many “things” one can add to an “app” so that the “app” does all those “things” well and and yet remains simple depends on available technology and its general acceptance by the public at large.

PS: I just discovered this site and am excited to be part of this community.