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Law 1: Reduce
The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction
'John Maeda
John Maeda
The easiest way to simplify a system is to remove functionality. Today’s DVD, for instance, has too many buttons if all you want to do is play a movie. A solution could be to remove the buttons for Rewind, Forward, Eject, and so forth until only one button remains: Play.
But what if you want to replay a favorite scene? Or pause the movie while you take that all-important bathroom break? The fundamental question is, where’s the balance between simplicity and complexity?
HOW SIMPLE CAN YOU MAKE IT? < > HOW COMPLEX DOES IT HAVE TO BE?
On the one hand, you want a product or service to be easy to use; on the other hand you want it to do everything that a person might want it to do.
The process of reaching an ideal state of simplicity can be truly complex, so allow me to simplify it for you. The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction. When in doubt, just remove. But be careful of what you remove.
SHE’S ALWAYS RIGHT
We would find it hard to remove any given button from a DVD player if forced to do so. The problem is one of choosing what deserves to live, at the sacrifice of what deserves to die. Such decisions are not easy when most of us are not trained to be despots. Our usual preference is to let live what lives: we would choose to keep all the functionality if we could.
When it is possible to reduce a system’s functionality without significant penalty, true simplification is realized. When everything that can be removed is gone, a second battery of methods can be employed. I call these methods she: shrink, hide, embody.
SHE: SHRINK
When a small, unassuming object exceeds our expectations, we are not only surprised but pleased. Our usual reaction is something like,“That little thing did all that?” Simplicity is about the unexpected pleasure derived from what is likely to be insignificant and would otherwise go unnoticed. The smaller the object, the more forgiving we can be when it misbehaves.
Making things smaller doesn’t make them necessarily better, but when made so we tend to have a more forgiving attitude towards their existence. A larger-than-human-scale object demands its rightful respect, whereas a tiny object can be something that deserves our pity. When comparing a kitchen spoon to a construction bulldozer the larger scale of the vehicle instills fear, while the rounded utensil appears harmless and inconsequential. The bulldozer can run you over and end your life, but if the spoon were to fall on top of you, your life would likely be spared. Guns, mace cannisters, and little karate experts of course are the exception to this rule of “fear the large, endear the small.”
Technology is shrink-ing. The computational power of a machine that sixty years ago weighed 60,000 pounds and occupied 1,800 square feet can now be packed onto a sliver of metal less than a tenth the size of the nail on your pinkie. Integrated circuit (IC) chip technology—commonly referred to as “computer chips”—allows far greater complexity at a much tinier scale. IC chips lie at the heart of the problem of complex devices today as they enable increasingly smaller devices to be created. A kitchen spoon and a mobile phone can share the exact same physical dimensions, yet the many IC’s embedded inside the phone make the device easily more complexthan the bulldozer—so looks can be deceiving.
Thus while IC’s are a primary driver of complexity in modern day objects, they also enable the ability to shrink a frighteningly complex machine to the size of a cute little gumdrop. The smaller the object is, the lower the expectations; the more IC’s that are inside, the greater the power. In this age of wireless technology that connects the IC inside the phone with all the computers in the world, power has now become absolute. There is no turning back to the age when large objects were complex and small objects were simple.
Babies are examples of complex machines that although small, require constant attention to the point of driving most parents insane. Yet in the midst of the havoc they wreak, a precious moment can give way when their big beautiful eyes peer into your tired bleariness with a look of, “Help me! Love me!” It is said that this irresistible cuteness is their key self-preservation mechanism, which I know myself works for a fact, having experienced it many times over. Fragility is an essential counteracting force to complexity because it can instill pity—which by coincidence also occurs in the word simplicity!
The science of making an object appear delicate and fragile is a skill practiced throughout the history of art. An artist is trained to evoke emotion in his fellow human being through the work he creates, whether that emotion be pity, fear, anger, or any other feeling or combination thereof. Of the many tools at the artist’s disposal to achieve enhanced small-ification are lightness and thinness. For example, the mirrored back of an Apple iPod creates the illusion that the object is only as thin as the floating white or black plastic layer because the rest of the object adapts to its surroundings. Already thin, flat-screen displays like LCD’s or plasmas are made to appear even lighter by sitting atop minimal structural supports or in the extreme case floating on an invisible Lucite platform. Another common approach to achieving thinness is seen in the Lenovo ThinkPad’s beveled clamshell as your eyes travel down and off the bottom edge of the keyboard to nothingness. A further collection of these types of designs can be browsed at lawsofsimplicity.com
Any design that incorporates lightness and thinness conveys the impression of being smaller, lesser, and humbler. Pity gives way to respect when much more value is delivered than originally expected. There is a steady stream of core technologies that will make things smaller, such as nanotechnology—the science of building machines that fit between your squeezed thumb and forefinger. Lessening the inevitable complicating blow of these technologies by way of shrink may seem like a form of deception, which it is. But anything that can make the medicine of complexity go down easier is a form of simplicity, even when it is an act of deceit.
SHE: HIDE
When all features that can be removed have been, and a product has been made slim, light, and thin, it’s time for the second method: hide the complexity through brute-force methods. A classical example of this technique is the Swiss army knife. Only the tool you wish to use is exposed, while the other blades and drivers are hidden.
With an endless array of buttons, remote controls for audio/video equipment are notoriously confusing. In the 90s, a common design solution was to hide the less-used functions, such as setting the time or date behind a hidden door, while keeping only the primary functions such as Play, Stop, and Eject exposed. This approach is no longer popular, probably due to a combination of the added production costs and the prevailing belief that visible features (i. e. buttons) attract buyers.
As style and fashion have become powerful forces in the cell phone market, handset makers have been pushed to find the balance between the elegance of simplicity and need-it-all complexity. Today, the clamshell design is the most evolved example of hiding functionality until you really need it. All buttons are sandwiched between the speaker and microphone such that when it is closed it is a simple bar of soap. Many recent designs have gone beyond the clamshell, and employ slide-away or flip-out mechanisms. Such evolutions are driven by a market that demands innovation and is willing to pay for clever ways to hide complexity.
But there might be no better example of the hide method than today’s computer interfaces. The menu bar at the top hides the functionality of the application. And the other three sides of the screen contain other click-to-reveal menus and palettes that seem to multiply as the computer increases in power. The computer has an infinite amount of capacity to hide in order to create the illusion of simplicity. Now that computer screens are shrunken onto cell phones, microwave ovens, and every manner of consumer electronics, the power to hide incredible amounts of complexity is everywhere.
Hiding complexity through ingenious mechanical doors or tiny display screens is an overt form of deception. If the deceit feels less like malevolence, more like magic, then hidden complexities become more of a treat than a nuisance. The earcatching “click” when opening a Motorola Razr cell phone or the cinematic performance of an on-screen visual in Apple’s Mac OS X creates the satisfaction of owning the power to will complexity from simplicity. Thus complexity becomes a switch that the owner can choose to flip into action on their own terms, and not by their device’s will.
shrink-ing an object lowers expectations, and the hiding of complexities allows the owner to manage the expectations himself. Technology creates the problem of complexity, but also affords new materials and methods for the design of our relationship with complexities that shall only continue to multiply. Although instilling “pity” and choosing how to “control” it sound like draconian approaches to simplicity, they can be seen in a positive light for the feelings of enjoyment they create.
SHE: EMBODY
As features go into hiding and products shrink, it becomes ever more necessary to embed the object with a sense of the value that is lost after hide and shrink. Consumers will only be drawn to the smaller, less functional product if they perceive it to be more valuable than a bigger version of the product with more features. Thus the perception of quality becomes a critical factor when making the choice of less over more.
embody-ing quality is primarily a business decision, more than one of design or technology. The quality can be actual, as embodied by better materials and craftsmanship; or the quality can be perceived, as portrayed in a thoughtful marketing campaign. Exactly where to invest—real or believed quality—to get maximum return is a question with no single definitive answer.
Perceived excellence can be programmed into consumers with the power of marketing. When we see a super-athlete like Michael Jordan wearing Nikes, we can’t help but imbue the sneakers with some of his heroic qualities. Even without the association of a celebrity, a marketing message can be a powerful tool to increase belief in quality. For instance, although I’m usually loyal to Google, I’ve been recently exposed to a bevy of Microsoft live.com and Ask.com television commercials and now I find myself Google-ing much less. The power of suggestion is powerful.
Embodying an object with properties of real quality is the basis of the luxury goods industry and is rooted in their use of precious materials and exquisite craftsmanship. Relatedly, a designer of Ferrari cars once told me that a Ferrari has fewer parts than a common car, but the parts themselves are significantly better than anything else on this earth. This elegant tale of construction uses the simple philosophy that if good parts can make a great product, incredible parts can lead to a legendary one. Sometimes there are instances of overkill, such as the titanium-clad laptop I own—I’m unlikely to need titanium’s strength to shield myself from a bullet. But I enjoy the personal satisfaction that a higher quality material is used instead of an inferior plastic. The upside of materialism is that the way something we own feels can change how we feel.
Sometimes mixing actual and perceived qualities works well, like in the design of the Bang & Olufsen remote control. The unit is thin and slender in composition and made with the finest materials, but is significantly (and intentionally) heavier—as a means to subtly communicate higher quality—than you would expect from its appearance. Substantive technologies, like three CCD imaging arrays inside a video camera instead of the standard single array, are usually invisible. Thus the perception needs to be made visible somehow, unfortunately in direct contradiction to hide. An unobtrusive sticker on the unit like “3 CCD’s” or a message that appears when the unit is first turned on helps to advertise this extra hidden power. It is necessary to advertise qualities that cannot be conveyed implicitly, especially when the message of embodiment simply tells the truth.
SHE SHE’D
Lessen what you can and conceal everything else without losing the sense of inherent value. embody-ing a greater sense of quality through enhanced materials and other messaging cues is an important subtle counterbalance to shrink-ing and hide-ing the directly understood aspects of a product. Design, technology, and business work in concert to realize the final decisions that will lead to how much reduction in a product is tolerable, and how much quality it will embody in spite of its reduced state of being. Small is better when she’d.
From John Maeda, THE LAWS OF SIMPLICITY, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006
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