Monday, August 8, 2011

KISS, again

KISS: Keep it simple, stupid!

Is there anything new to report about simplicity, or its virtues?

Perhaps.

To get the conversation started, consider "Fifteen ways to shut down a Windows laptop" 

On the serious side, I happened upon the book "Ten Laws of Simplicity" by John Maeda. You can download the book on Kindle for $12, but here's the gist:


But of course, there are many learned treatise' on this topic.  For instance, David Pogue writes about gadgets, and his 'cause celebre' is also simplicity.  In a TED talk on this , Pogue's "rules" (rules is probably an overstatement) are:
  • People like to surround themselves with unnecessary power
  • If you improve a piece of software often enough you eventually ruin it
  • One approach to simplicity is 'let's break it down'. (but disaggregation leads to its own form of complexity, e.g. the trees rather than the forest)
  • Violate consistency in favor of intelligence (don't alphabetize US on a list of 200 countries for US users)
  • Easy is hard: pre-sweat the details
  • Simplicity sells

Pogue actually mixes in some humor with his talent for piano and song:


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