What can we learn from Philosophy?

A 13th century English Franciscan friar by the name of William of Ockham, who was a scholastic philosopher and theologian, used a preference for simplicity to defend the idea of divine miracles and came up with a theorem; Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. In this case the one that requires the smallest number of assumptions is usually correct - Occam's razor - all things being equal the most simple is the right answer.

Vilfredo Pareto a 19th century Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher (and we thought having multiple careers was a 21st century invention) came up with the law of the vital few which states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes - Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule.

John Locke an 17th Century English philosopher and physician drew on the earlier Greek philosophers of Descartes; Simple Natures and the Concepts of Clarity and Distinctness to propose that simple ideas are the elements of thought we passively receive through sensation and reflection. According to Locke, simple Ideas mostly agree with things, since “the mind . . . can by no means make to itself any simple idea". Thus we can have ideas derived from one sense e.g., taste, smell, colour etc. or through more than one sense e.g., figure, motion, size etc.; or through reflection e.g., perception; or through sensation and reflection both e.g., pleasure and pain etc. He goes on to say that complex ideas are formed by the mind, by comparing, combining and abstracting from simple ideas.

This shows us that the ideas and thoughts surrounding simple design have roots stretching back into early philosophical theories.

Another area that has been influential in simple design is Japanese Zen Buddhism; which heavily emphasizes meditation and mindfulness. In fact, both “Zen” and “Chan” simply translate into 'meditation'. Steve Jobs’ love of simplicity in design was honed when he became a practitioner of Buddhism. After dropping out of college, he made a long pilgrimage through India seeking enlightenment, but it was mainly the Japanese path of Zen Buddhism that stirred his sensibilities. “Zen was a deep influence,” said Daniel Kottke, a college friend who accompanied Jobs on the trip. Jobs’ belief in the power of simplicity as a design precept reached its pinnacle with the three consumer device triumphs he produced beginning in 2001: the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

“Out of chaos, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony”  Bruce Lee

What can we learn from Science?

In the world of physics and thermodynamics entropy is commonly associated with the amount of order, disorder, or chaos in a thermodynamic system. Put simply, entropy is a measure of disorder, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that all closed systems tend to maximize entropy. Reversing this ever increasing tendency toward disorder requires the input of energy. That's why housekeeping requires effort. Left on its own, your house would get dusty, spiders would move in, and eventually, it would fall apart. However, the energy put into preventing disorder in one place simultaneously increases it somewhere else. Overall, the entropy of the universe always increases. This means that according to the Second law overall the world is falling apart in disorder - however this is happening at a very slow rate and it is doing it in a seriously interesting way. It can be likened to a waterfall that is rushing down, but the waterfall throws up a spray of structure, and that spray of structure might be you or me or a daffodil or whatever. So you can see that in the unwinding of the universe and collapse into disorder, it is still possible to create order, but this requires effort or energy.

So how does this relate to simple design? Ordered systems tend to be simpler to use, however even the laws of physics tell us that to achieve order requires energy or effort. If we use the example of exercise; it may seem simpler not to exercise as doing exercise is complicated; requires planning, equipment, mental and physical effort over just doing nothing, but doing nothing leads to more disorder as the body stores fat, muscles become weaker, arteries get clogged, and organs become less efficient. Exercise is the effort that is restoring order which leads to a better outcome; with exercise performing tasks is easier sand simpler things like walking are easier, ascending stairs is simpler, greater mental alertness leading to easier decision making, and overall body efficiency is improved resulting in less injury, fatigue, or disease. So if you are not convinced exercise is good for you, think of it as extending the life of the universe!

Principles of simple design?

Don Norman is often referred to as the godfather of simplicity in industrial design. He has championed the intuitive design of products ranging from door knobs and water faucets to the control panels of nuclear power plants. Design excellence, he wrote, is the most important key to winning over consumers. From his work he crafted six principles of design - a number of these have particular relevance to simple design:

Visibility: can I see it? This is the most basic principle. The more clear and visible functions are, the more likely users will be able to know what to do next. In simple design only most needed functions should be visible.

Mapping: where am I and where can I go? This refers to the relationship between controls and their effects in the world. In simple design the mapping should be as direct and straightforward as possible.

Affordance: how do I use it? Is an attribute of an object that allows people to know how to use it. In simple design use affordances which are clear and obvious.

If Don Norman is the Godfather then Steve Jobs is perhaps the golden child. He is often quoted as saying "Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains". In order to do this you  really need to understand the problem. This requires extensive research and getting out of the building. This was unthinkable to those in the Bauhaus. As we put the person into the design, especially as we are concerned about people’s abilities to understand and make use of our evermore complex, electronically mediated objects, we need very different design principles. Form alone will no longer suffice. We must understand people, how they work and behave and, especially, how they can come to understand complex technology. It is the role of the designer to make the complex appear to be simple.

Another principle often associated with simple design is minimalism. At its core, being a minimalist means intentionally promoting the things we most value and removing everything that distracts us from it. It is a life that forces intentionality upon us. As a result, it forces improvements in almost all aspects of your life. Whilst mainly regarded as an art movement that began in post–World War II Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s, the essence that drives artists to consider minimalism can also be applied to product design -  in the power of minds and mental states to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs being directed towards the design to remove distractions and focus on the value. A similar idea is the YAGNI Principle {You Aren't Gonna Need It) which is a used in extreme programming (XP) that states a programmer should not add functionality until deemed necessary. XP co-founder Ron Jeffries has written: "Always implement things when you actually need them, never when you just foresee that you need them". Both minimalism and YAGNI are processes and principles of design with the primary objective and/or value to not add functionality that is not of immediate use.

In product design recent focus has been on adopting a lean methodology and creating an MVP (Minimum Viable Product or Proposition) which is a version of a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers and provide feedback for future product development and was popularized by Steve Blank and Eric Ries in the book Lean Startup. Whilst minimalism can help with removal of features they still need to have value, otherwise customers with not be satisfied or consider the product useful, this is where viable steps in. In order for something to be considered Viable (aligns with business goals and has a sustainable business model) you also need to consider Desirability and Feasibility.

Desirability; Does the product address a problem or meet a need? Do you understand the people who are going to use the product and will it appeal to them?

Feasibility; Is the technology needed to make the product available or within reach? How long will this take? Can the organization actually make it happen.

The MoSCoW method (Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have) is a technique used in management, business analysis, project management, and software development to reach a common understanding with stakeholders on the importance they place on the delivery of each requirement:

M - Must have this requirement to meet the business needs

S - Should have this requirement if possible, but project success does not rely on it

C - Could have this requirement if it does not affect anything else on the project

W - Would like to have this requirement later, but delivery won't be this time

Used in conjunction with MVP can help to focus the design to achieve higher level of desirability for those features that are must have, rather  than spreading the design effort over range of features that are not needed.

Noriaki Kano, a Japanese researcher and consultant, published a paper in 1984 with a set of ideas and techniques that help us determine customers satisfaction with product features. These ideas are commonly called the Kano Model and are based upon the premise that customer satisfaction with product features depends on the level of functionality that is provided and how much or how well they’re implemented. Features are classified into four categories:

Performance; Some product features behave as how we might intuitively think Satisfaction works: the more we provide, the more satisfied our customers become. Because of this proportional relation between Functionality and Satisfaction, these features are usually called Performance features.

Must-be; Other product features are simply expected by customers. If the product doesn’t have them, it will be considered to be incomplete or just plain bad. This type of features is usually called Must-be or Basic Expectations.

Attractive; There are unexpected features which, when presented, cause a positive reaction. These are usually called Attractive, Exciters or Delighters.

Indifferent; Naturally, there are also features towards which we feel indifferent. Those which their presence (or absence) doesn’t make a real difference in our reaction to the product.

An important fact to note is they are not static — they change over time. What customers feel about some product attributes now is not what they’ll feel in the future. Attractive features turn into Performance and Must-be features as time goes by.

Visual-design principles inform us how design elements such as line, shape, color, grid, or space go together to create well-rounded and thoughtful visuals. There are many principles in this area but the following have particular relevance to simple design:

Scale: The principle of scale refers to using relative size to signal importance and rank in a composition. The most important elements in a design are bigger than the ones that are less important. The reason behind this principle is simple: when something is big, it’s more likely to be noticed.

Balance: The principle of balance refers to a satisfying arrangement or proportion of design elements. Balance occurs when there is an equally distributed (but not necessarily symmetrical) amount of visual signal on both sides of an imaginary axis going through the middle of the screen.

Contrast: The principle of contrast refers to the juxtaposition of visually dissimilar elements in order to convey the fact that these elements are different (e.g., belong in different categories, have different functions, behave differently).

Gestalt Principles: These explain how humans simplify and organize complex images that consist of many elements, by subconsciously arranging the parts into an organized system that creates a whole, rather than interpreting them as a series of disparate elements. In other words, Gestalt principles capture our tendency to perceive the whole as opposed to the individual elements.

Colour: Are largely responsible for dictating the mood of a design — each color has something a little different to say. Green tends to make people think of non-profits or the environment, while red causes stormy emotions like anger, blue is more calming and passive, and yellow creates a sensation of happiness.

Space: The parts of your design you choose to leave blank are just as important as the ones you’re filling with colors, text and images. Negative space creates shape and can help highlight the most important pieces of information in your design. Never underestimate the power of simplicity.

The Golden ratio has been used throughout history (it is believed the Golden Ratio has been in use for at least 4,000 years in human art and design) to create design elements that have an ideal visual appeal because the shape is rooted in nature and mathematics, it’s the perfect combination of balance and harmony. Simply, the golden ratio (also called the golden rectangle and golden mean) is a shape with a proportion of 1 to 1.618. It helps to establish the right emotional and visual tone with users.  What the golden ratio does is cue you into to focal areas where the user is likely to focus and look based on nature. It helps create balance and scale, even when not wholly intentional.

In Conclusion

In the rapidly evolving world there is a propensity for things to become more complex; the accumulation of technology and innovation is more often adding to the complexity rather than taking away. Today on average we check our smartphone 150 times a day and are bombarded with communications and notifications from an increasing number of connected devices. According to Cisco, 500 billion devices are expected to be connected to the Internet by 2030. Each device includes sensors that collect data, interact with the environment, and communicate over a network, by which time the average person is likely to own around 15 connected devices all vying for our attention. The impact is a world with vast oceans of data and armadas of AI solutions to help us navigate to islands of enlightenment. In all of this growth and progress it is easy to loose sight of the outcome and the purpose or need driving the design and get lost in the technology or the novelty. In an increasingly complex society it is important not to add to the cognitive load but take away from it. This is why simple design is vital especially when considering the big issues facing humanity; climate change, social impact, health, food, and energy production.

As designers we aspire to make products and services that are simple, effortless, stress free and a joy to use. Do the hard work to make it simple. Making something easy to use is hard especially when the underlying systems are complex. Don’t settle for “well it’s always been that way” as an answer. It’s usually more and harder work to make things simple, but it’s the right thing to do. ‘Keep it simple’ should be a guiding principle for everything we do.

If science fiction has taught us anything, in space the thing that is going to save your life what things turn bad, is not the multi-million dollar space suit or the high-tech carbon nano-tube fabric, but the simple duct tape!