CoP: Theory into Practice - Content

THE LAW


Reduce:


Nature loves simplicity and unity
—Johannes Kepler
Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication
—Leonardo da Vinci

Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful. It’s about making something easier to understand.

Simplicity is getting at the core of something and understanding what that thing truly is and then making every part consistent with the core.

We know simple when we see it, when we touch it, when we use it. And one thing we quickly learn is simplicity is difficult to achieve.

Simplicity isn’t just a visual style. It’s not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep.…You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential.
—Jony Ive

  

Why is Simplicity Important?

In a 2002 poll, the Consumer Electronics Association discovered that87% of people said ease of use is the most important thing when it comes to new technologies.

Simplicity doesn’t equal usability, but simple designs are typically easier to use.

Consider the principle of choices. Providing less options leads to a greater chance that any one option will be chosen. Each additional option adds complexity to the decision making process.

Simple designs tend to be more aesthetically pleasing. Simplicity is more accessible. It helps us get things done faster, more easily, and more efficiently.

Simplicity leads to less need for instruction and support.

Think of the popularity of services like Instapaper and Readability and ask yourself why they’re popular. One reason is they strip away the ornament in the design of many websites and simply present the content. They make it simpler to consume the content.

Swiss writer and entrepreneur, Alain de Bouton observed that “cultures are drawn to create things that are missing from their age and environment.”

It’s no wonder simplicity is a goal of our current culture. The more complex our lives become, the more we crave simplicity.

How Do We Achieve Simplicity?

The first step in achieving simplicity in design is, as Jony Ive said, to go deep. You have to truly understand what’s at the core, what’s the essence of the thing your designing.

This is why mobile first is such a compelling design strategy because it forces you to think about what is really necessary. The constraints of the mobile screen require the essential to be front and foremost.

Giles Colborne’s slideshare presentation above offers us 4 steps away from complexity and towards simplicity in design.

Remove features — Don’t just remove to remove. Remove the unessential through thoughtful reduction.

The idea is to remove what doesn’t get used and what doesn’t add anything meaningful to the essence of the thing you’re designing.

Keep in mind that you can’t remove everything. Too few features can make things more complex to use.

Hide features — Some things shouldn’t be removed, but they don’t demand our attention at all times.

Hide things that are less important at the moment. Move them to an out of the way place, but allow them to be easily findable when needed. Think of the principle of progressive disclosure.

Drop down menus are an example of a pattern we’ve all been using for years that attempts to hide what’s unnecessary at the moment.

Group features — By placing things into logical groups you make them easier to find.

The group becomes a quick and easy target to eliminate others and then we can zero in on what we want by searching through fewer options.

We can design groupings by organizing content well, aligning elements, creating order though grids, and taking advantage of theprinciple of proximity.

Displace features — Move features and options to another location.

A good example is removing buttons from a remote control in favor of a single button leading to an on screen menu.

This doesn’t remove the complexity, but rather moves it to a location where it may not seem as complex.

Make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.
— Albert Einstein

Einstein’s quote sums up nicely the objective of design simplicity.

• Understand what’s at the core of the experience
• Make sure you don’t disrupt the core of the experience

The latter is achieved through unity. When everything is in harmony with the core they enhance it. When things are not in harmony they distract, which adds complexity.

Aesthetics and experience need to be aligned to the core.

Start with a minimalist approach and then add only with the idea of unity in mind. If it doesn’t enhance the core, it doesn’t belong. Thoughtful reduction is about core and unity

Toward the end of his presentation Colborne offers 2 laws of simplicity

• Complexity is never eliminated. It’s merely reduced and displaced. Ask yourself where you want complexity to end up.
• Simplicity is an experience. It happens in the user’s head. Simplicity is whatever your users think it is. It’s their experience that determines if something is simple.

To improve simplicity he urges us to focus on the following.

• what is core
• make the experience compact
• align the experience to the core
• rely on existing user knowledge
• decide where you want to place complexity
• trust the user

Making something appear simple adds complexity behind the scenes. Simplicity in design moves the complex away from the user and toward the creator.

This is why simplicity is difficult. To design a site simple for your visitors to use, means more work for you.

It’s more work, but it’s worth it.

Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.
—Antoine de Saint Exupery

Everything should be as simple as possible — but no simpler.
—Albert Einstein

Omit needless words.
—Strunk and White

Less, but better
—Dieter Rams

It just works
—Steve Jobs

http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/simplicity/

• You can reduce, but there is a limit to that too. Not everything can be taken off from a system and sometimes, newer features must be added to make things simple. Most of the times, very few features can make things complex.

• Hiding the unimportant features helps but the problem is, where do we hide it? We need to hide them such that it can be easily found thus not disturbing the logical functionality of the system. We need to make sure we hide it in the right place so that additional features can be easily incorporated.

• Grouping the features in a germane manner works but the user is expected to have complex knowledge to be able to analyse it in a simple manner.

http://richworks.in/2010/06/how-to-incorporate-simplicity-in-your-designs/

Organise: 


Files
http://www.gomediazine.com/design-articles/organize-your-design-files-or-else/
http://www.outlawdesignblog.com/2009/06/how-to-organize-graphic-design-files/
http://www.topdesignmag.com/become-a-more-organized-graphic-designer/
http://www.graphicdesignfreelancejobs.com/articles/how-to-organize-your-graphic-design-business.php

To achieve a perfect level of organization, a scheme has to be developed. John Maeda, in his book, “The laws of Simplicity” gives 4 steps for an efficiently organized system – SLIP scheme:

• SORT - Randomly group your ideas that comes to your mind.

• LABEL – Put a label on each of the groups as u feel.

• INTEGRATE – Combine groups which you think are similar.

• PRIORITIZE – Give attention based on set priority.

http://richworks.in/2010/06/how-to-incorporate-simplicity-in-your-designs/

Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.

— Charles Eames

Time:


Plan - write lists - domestic/work/social
Deadlines

A designer is a planner with an aesthetic sense.

— Bruno Munari

Learn:


Knowledge makes good communication
Research

There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence.

— Massimo Vignelli

Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.

— Jeffrey Zeldman

Differences:


Create differences in your practice 


“Simplicity and complexity need each other.”

If everything was simple, nothing would be simple. We appreciate simplicity only because we can compare it to complexity. The iPod and Google, ever the popular examples of simplicity, would not have succeeded if there weren’t some pretty bad (read: complex) competition.

Like many opposites, simple and complex aren’t that different. Many times, the simple thing just disguises very complex things going on behind the scenes. Millions of non-programmers type words into search engines every day. These same people have no idea about what it takes to create an index that is able to return results in a fraction of a second.

http://www.adamduvander.com/simple/law-5-differences

Most importantly, know the difference between your existing audience and your potential audience, and the relative importance of each.
Conform enough so that you are a part of the crowd, but be different enough that you stand out.
http://freelanceswitch.com/freelancing-essentials/social-media-and-simplicity-part-5-differences/

People ignore design that ignores people.

— Frank Chimero

Context: 


Consider the context where the design will be - location/audience

"Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan."

Eliel Saarinen

Emotion:


Type
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10689931
Colour
http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html

Technology over technique produces emotionless design.

— Daniel Mall

“More emotions are better than less.”
http://www.taniainteractive.co.uk/exp_design/colour.html

Trust:

Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's.

- Billy Wilder

“In simplicity we trust.”


Failure:


Make mistakes and learn from them


Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better.  ~Samuel Beckett


“Some things can never be made simple.”




If theres time id like to include the elements and principles of design within the publicaiton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_elements_and_principles