Simplicity is becoming an increasingly important trend in design. As life becomes faster-paced and we’re deluged with more choices, more information and more stuff, users and consumers are demanding that designers do the heavy lifting of making things more focussed, easier to learn, more refined.
The question for designers is “How?” How do we know when something is just right, and when it’s too much or not enough? How do we separate the essential from the peripheral? When do we stop?
It’s easy to coin meaningless slogans like “if in doubt, throw it out” but they give little help to the designer trying to refine their product to the point of optimal usefulness and usability without making it useless.
John Maeda approaches the subject in his book The Laws of Simplicity. His first law of simplicity is Reduce. He writes:
The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction. When in doubt, just remove. But be careful of what you remove.
Anyone then expecting a discussion of how we set out to thoughtfully reduce will be disappointed. The matter is sidestepped entirely and the rest of the chapter details strategies for minimising the impact of what remains.
This series of posts will give you a toolbox of strategies for thoughtful reduction, whether you’re designing software or websites, products, layouts or just decluttering your home.
Strategies for Scope
How many features should our product have? How long should our article be? How many books is it reasonable to own? The strategies for scope help us find the right quantity of things to have.
Strategies for Selection
Which features should our product have? Which issues should our article address? Which books should we own? The strategies for selection help us to discriminate between the things worth including and those we can leave out.
This is a series in progress. I aim to complete it within the next two weeks, so please stay tuned.
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