It seems that while simplicity is always a focus of product and interface designers, it tends to peak in cycles. We're at a surge now, including the Telegraph's interview of Apple's Jonathan Ive simplicity isn't simple. Along these lines, the current issue of the Design Management Institute's publication DMI Review is focused on balancing simplicity and complexity in product design.
My contribution to this issue, simply titled Designing with Complexity looks at the challenges of the design process needed to achieve a simple user experience. As in music, particularly the composition style of Philip Glass, it is not easy to define what is simple, as it depends on one's perspective (e.g. the composer, the audience). We typically focus on the end-user when it is really the design process that drives the simplicity of an interaction. I define three approaches along with real-world examples for managing complexity in the design process including:
- Defeaturing (reducing complexity)
- Demystifying (using design to clearly communicate complexity )
- Distributing (allocating complexity between the user and the system)
Effective designers need to understand these methods and apply them (often in combination).
I have previously written on simplicity (perhaps during the last peak of the cycle) with my article keep it simple, stupid (pdf) for Barclays360, which looked at how several businesses have successfully implemented simplicity.
