The concept of simplicity
Making your interface smaller, hiding advanced functionality and taking out the obvious is the path to a simpler interface. Along this path you’ll face many obstacles. For every feature you hide or take away, there will be people who complain and demand that you bring it back. But every one of your users has different needs and uses your web app or website in a different way. If you listen to all the feature requests and needs, and go as far as addressing and implementing them all, you’re unlikely to arrive at the zenith of software design.
For those looking for some base concepts on the idea of simplicity, here are John Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity:
- Reduce – The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction
- Organize – Organization makes a system of many appear fewer
- Time - Savings in time feel like simplicity
- Learn – Knowledge makes everything simpler
- Differences – Simplicity and complexity need each other
- Context – What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral
- Emotion – More emotions are better than less
- Trust – In simplicity we trust
- Failure – Some things can never be made simple
- The One – Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful