In Love With Complexity

I have just finished reading Simplexity by Jeffrey Kluger, a senior editor and writer for Time magazine. The full title of the book is Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple). This is precisely the kind of question that’s been on my mind for a long time.

One of the arguments I’ve heard against offering simple solutions is that simple is not “professional.” The UI has to look sophisticated, rugged. With lots of buttons to click. The customer wants it, the claim goes.

Really? I have yet to bump into someone who’d say, “Thank you so much for making my life and job more complicated. I really enjoy feeling overwhelmed. Your product gives me all the worry I’ve hoped for.”

“Of course, it’s not just in the service of customers who ask for features that companies keep things complex. It’s in the service of the balance sheet too.”

This is what I see happen in the Microsoft world. I tend to agree with people who call Microsoft “complexity merchants.” Where simple solutions would’ve worked, Microsoft produced unwieldy monstrosities that require armies of people to maintain.

Same story with books. Publishers prefer (or some used to, for sure) bigger, thicker books because they seem to convey more value. Never mind it’s futile to cover every nook and cranny of ASP.NET. Even in 2,000 pages you’re still only scratching the surface. That’s not the story a publisher would tell you because it’s not in the interest of their anonymous, faceless “shareholders.”

Retailers are this way, too.

“Many electronics retailers have an understandable interest in telling you, ’The world is too complicated. We’ll manage all of this for you. […] If a line of products came out that didn’t require professional assistance, you wouldn’t have to go to the store that said it had the best.

[…] There’s this whole business built around complexity. It’s like selling something dangerous and then selling the service that makes it less dangerous.”

How simple is simple enough, then?

“The design irony, of course, is that if any products ought to confer status, it’s often not the most complex-looking ones, but the simplest-looking ones—those with their features artfully integrated into the whole rather than stamped and studded all over the outside.”

iPod is cited as an example of such a device. Simple does not mean primittive. I’m sure iPod is far from primitive on the inside, but it does a good job of hiding complexity from spilling outside.

This, to me, is pretty close to the Holy Grail of interface design.

Yup. Taking complexity, and hiding it well enough so that people don’t have to worry about it, creates value. You’re doing work for them, thus saving them time. That’ll always be valuable.

Every 6 months, I have to change the clocks in my car and my wife's car. I have a Honda and it is obvious and very easy to do. My wife's car is a Dodge Caravan. I have to find the manual and read how to do it.
The Honda I change immediately, the minivan my have to wait for the weekend.
When I write my own user interfaces, I ask myself: Am I the Honda or the Mini-Van?

I think the disconnect comes when the person who decides on the software isn't the person who's going to use it---or will use it differently.

You get this with a lot of large companies, where the CTO (or whatever decision maker) is focused on one thing (e.g. monitoring the employees, security, etc.) while the actual users want something else (e.g. ease of use).

I've read the book by Kluger, too, and in my opinion it is really a good starting point for discovering the field of complexity. It is easy to read and especially the first two chapters are quite interesting.

Have you read the Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda? It's quite short (less than 100 pages i think) and is mostly a set of 10 rules or laws or ways to make complex things simpler. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262134721

Joe, I haven't yet. I've had this book on my reading list for a long time, though.

from the retailer angle. One of the areas of business I have been involved with for some time now has been sales. Brick and mortar concepts are now being translated to methodologies for ecommerce. You make things seem complex enough that they "have" to be legitimate because the customer doesn't know enough (normally) to question the inconsistencies. If they do than you have the opportunity to lock in a sale personally. For ecommerce, websites are finding ways to complicate simple transactions to lock in the customer and complete the sale (i.e. multiple pages deep after entering all of their information...why leave now when it's only increased by 8 bucks??) Complicating things just enough to engage a sale is the way of business and a fine line to perfect...complexity will always reign over buyers and sellers. Great post - typed more than I thought I would, but def. hit the button.