John Maeda is a computer scientist, visual artist, graphic designer, and professor of media arts and sciences at MIT who explained the rules of simplicity in his book. These ten laws of simplicity for business, technology, and design teaches how to need less but get more. It made me learn simplicity = sanity. The book is all about the nature and soul of simplicity and how simplicity can be applied to your own work and life.
Technology has made our lives more full,
yet at the same time we’ve become uncomfortably “full.”
10 Laws
Law 1 / Reduce
The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
Reduce functionality. If you observe your tv remote it has many buttons. But we hardly use those buttons. The idea of this law is to offer consumers the features they needed, but no more than that.
Use the SHE principle — Shrink, Hide, Embody:
- Shrink — When a small unassuming object exceeds our expectations, we are not only surprised but pleased. Shrinking a product lowers expectations.
- Hide — Hide the complexity. For example, the Swiss army knife — only the tool you wish to use is exposed, and the clamshell design of mobile phones. Functionality is hidden until you really need it.
- Embody — Embody quality. An object needs to be instilled with a sense of value. Consumers will only be drawn to the smaller, less functional product if they perceive it to be more valuable than the bigger version of the product with more features. Quality can be actual (as embodied by better materials and craftsmanship, e.g. iPod) or the quality can be perceived (as portrayed in a marketing campaign, e.g. when we see Cristiano Ronaldo wearing Nikes).
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction. When in doubt, just remove. But be careful of what you remove” — John Maeda
Law 2 / Organize
Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.
When users are presented with many choices users may embarrass. Reduce the number of buttons. You can simplify your products by organizing them. Organizing may make the system appear fewer.
While organizing the system ask yourself these questions:
- What to hide?
- Where to put it?
- What goes with what?
Here, Maeda suggests using the SLIP principle — Sort, Label, Integrate, Prioritize:
- Sort — Find the natural groupings.
- Label — Name each group.
- Integrate — Merge groups that appear significantly like each other. The fewer the groups the better.
- Prioritize — Collect the highest priority items into a single set to ensure that they get the most attention. use the Pareto Principle where it can be assumed that in any given piece of data, generally 80% can be managed at a lower priority and 20% requires the highest level.
Law 3 / Time
Savings in time feel like simplicity.
When forced to wait, life seems unnecessarily complex. Savings in time feel like simplicity. The faster something happens or the quicker the communication is digested or the problem answered, the simpler it seems. Think about services like UberEats.
Savings in time is really about reducing time, hence we can use the SHE principle again:
- Shrink time — Reduce a five-minute task to a one-minute task. Give up the option of choice and let a machine choose for you. For example, Amazon’s one-click payments. Alternatively, this could be achieved with randomness as exemplified by the iPod shuffle.
- Hide time — Make things happen in the background. It’s for this exact reason casinos remove windows and clocks form their walls.
- Embody time — A frozen computer is like a frozen clock, this is exactly why the progress bar was invented.
According to gestalt principles, human Brains search for patterns. This capability enables us to see the big picture rather than the details. we actually “see more by seeing less”.
Law 4 / Learn
Knowledge makes everything simpler.
Operating a screw is deceptively simple. Just mate the grooves atop the screw’s head. But what happens next is not as simple: do you turn left or right? You need a mnemonic such as “righty tighty, lefty loosy”. Knowledge makes everything simpler.
Use the BRAIN principle:
- Basics are the beginning. Assume the position of the first-time learner.
- Repeat yourself often. Repetition works.
- Avoid creating desperation. Don’t let “wow” become “woah”, it’s important to ease users into a new product.
- Inspire with examples. Internal motivation trumps external reward.
- Never forget to repeat yourself. See ‘Repeat yourself often’. This point is so important that the acronym itself is an example of it.
The user needs to feel safe (by avoiding desperation), feel confident (by mastering the basics) and feel instinctive (by having been conditions through repetition).
Law 5 / Differences
Simplicity and complexity need each other
Without the counterpoint of complexity, we could not recognize simplicity when we see it. The more complexity there is in the market the more that something simpler stands out.
Like the simplicity of the iPod in comparison to its more complex competitors in the MP3 market.
By having more, we can appreciate the lesser — the more features that creep into an app over time, the more likely the experience will become overwhelming and complex.
Here is a common digital product lifecycle penned by Scott Belsky:
Users flock into a simple product > Product takes users for granted and adds features to satisfy power users > Users flock into a simpler product
Law 6 / Context
What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.
This point emphasizes the importance of what might become lost during the design process.
During the design process, it may be easy to become ‘lost’. Maeda mentions a lovely piece of advice given to him by a teacher — ‘become a lightbulb instead of a laserbeam’ — meaning to discover or question everything instead of focusing on a single point.
Complexity implies the feeling of being lost; simplicity implies the feeling of being found.
- Create white space.
- A simple progress bar can tell you exactly how far you’ve gotten.
- Page numbers and other traditional navigational elements like chapter headings are another layer of information that helps prevent you from getting lost.
Law 7 / Emotion
More emotions are better than less.
Why, after people are drawn to the simplicity of a device, do they rush to accessorize it? Simplicity can be considered ugly. Your product needs a sense of human warmth.
Like a lot of these laws, law seven intertwines with another, this time the above law — #7 Context. Maeda states:
‘when emotions are to be considered above everything else, don’t be afraid to add more ornament or layers of meaning’
As this may contradict Law one: Reduction, it is important to always consider context.
Law 8 / Trust
In simplicity we trust.
We live in an age where things are smart, fast and above all connected. For these factors to work well in a digital age, a level of trust is necessary.
For a product to be simple, usable and enjoyable, we will inevitably be required to hand information over Law 4 (Learn). If this same product is asking for too much information, no trust will be built and therefore the communication will be unsuccessful.
The more a system knows about you, the less you have to think. In return, the more you know about the system, the greater control you have.
Undo is a superpower: knowing something is correctable later, in an undo manner, makes the process simpler because you know that any decision made is not final.
But is the risk of placing trust in the devices around you worth the simplicity gained? Privacy is sacrificed for extra convenience.
Usability vs. Simplicity vs. Privacy
Finding a balance between unintrusive and trustworthy is a challenge. Whether as a consumer or designer, trust is undeniably important.
Law 9 / Failure
Some things can never be made simple.
Looking back to Law 4 (Learn), as we learn and understand more through attempts, successful or not, we will come to realize through new or different opportunities that some things just can not be made simple.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” — Thomas Edison
Maeda discusses the idea of ‘return on failure’. If a designer’s solution fails to clearly communicate, they should look to understand further what the problem is and then know for next time to design certain aspects differently.
Law 10 / The One
Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful
The 3 Technology Keys
This law is self-explanatory, however, there are 3 extra keys to bear in mind that have particular relevance to the subject of simplicity:
1st Key: Away
More appears like less by simply moving it far, far away.
For example, software as a service, like Google Docs. You don’t need to install or host software yourself.
2nd Key: Open
Openness simplifies complexity.
Open sourcing software is championed as a way to generate software that is not only free but more robust than more software available on the market. For example, Linux (free and open-source) is much easier to fix than Windows (for-pay and closed source).
3rd Key: Power
Use less, gain more.
Increased social practices that result in the use of less power — as well as supporting technology innovations for power harvesting and conservation- stand to realize a world where the most powerful examples of simplicity are those that will ironically appear powerless. For example, low-power devices that can go a long time without recharging.
And finally, the essence of simplicity realises that, in the end, all that matters are memories.
Recap:
There are 10 laws of simplicity. They fall into three increasingly complicated conditions of simplicity:
- Basic simplicity — reduce, organize, time
- Intermediate simplicity — learn, differences, context
- Deep simplicity — emotion, trust, failure
The 10th law — The One — sums up the entire set of laws.
