This morning, my 63-year-old father was complaining about his new cell phone. He can’t figure out why after a few days, the text messages in his inbox disappear. Frustrated, my dad says he is ready to pitch the whole thing in the trash. He’s not patient when it comes to new technology. He can’t understand why the design isn’t more simple.
After absorbing his rant, I left for work and turned on NPR in my car. The program – On Point – happened to be about “Simplicity in Technology.” The tagline: “In search of simplicity. Technology is supposed to make life better. But does it have to be so complicated?”
The show featured tech simplicity guru John Maeda from MIT and his 10 laws of simplicity when designing any interactive technology.
Here are Maeda’s first two:
1. The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
2. Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.
Listen to the audio report here.