The Laws of Simplicity - John Maeda

The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.

Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.

Savings in time feel like simplicity.

Knowledge makes everything simpler.

Simplicity and complexity need each other.

What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.

More emotions are better than less.

In simplicity we trust.

Some things can never he made simple.

Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.

In addition to the ten Laws, Maeda offers three Keys to achieving simplicity in the technology domain.

1 AWAY More appears like less by simply moving it far, far away.
2 OPEN Openness simplifies complexity.
3 POWER Use less, gain more.

When in doubt, just remove. But be careful of what you remove. … When it is possible to reduce a system’s functionality without significant penalty, true simplification is realized.

Simplicity is about the unexpected pleasure derived from what is likely to be insignificant and would otherwise go unnoticed.

The best designers in the world all squint when they look at something. They squint to see the forest from the trees-to find the right balance. Squint at the world. You will see more, by seeing less.

When forced to wait, life seems unnecessarily complex. Savings in time feel like simplicity. … A shot from the doctor hurts less when it happens quickly, and even less when we know that the shot will save our lives.

This is true for any object, no matter how difficult. The problem with taking time to learn a task is that you often feel you are wasting time, a violation of the third Law. We are well aware of the dive-in-head-first approach-“I don’t need the instructions, let me just do it.” But in fact this method often takes longer than following the directions in the manual.