sunny thaper

19 December 2007

Think Small, In A Big Way!

Posted by Sunny Thaper under: books .

I’m currently enthralled with John Maeda’s book “The Laws of Simplicity.” “Simplicity requires a book” you say? As crazy as it sounds, simplicity is actually a very complicated subject. Think for a moment about the iPod. What makes the iPod so popular? If you compare the iPod to other media players available on the market you will actually find that the iPod is quite lacking in the features department. Players such as the Zune offer far more advanced functionality than the iPod does. What makes people buy a technically inferior product then? Simplicity. The beauty of the iPod comes from it’s easy of use, from the intuitive interface to the iTunes software, the iPod provides an experience that is strangely familiar.

Maeda’s book breaks down the idea of designing with simplicity in mind into 10 easy to remember laws, written within 100 pages exactly and reinforced with easy to remember acronyms, making even the act of reading and learning from the book an act of simplicity.

One of the ideas that really stuck with me was the law of reduction. One of the key objectives of reduction, Maeda explains, is the idea of shrinking.

When a small, unassuming object exceeds our expectations, we are not only surprised but pleased. Our usual reaction is something like, “That little thing did all that?” Simplicity is about the unexpected pleasure derived from what is likely to be insignificant and would otherwise go unnoticed. The smaller the object, the more forgiving we can be when it misbehaves.

A company that successfully employs this reduction principle is Google. When you visit their home page you are greeted with a search box and two buttons. Compare this to the other less popular search engines and you will notice a striking difference. Other search engines seem bloated and full of unnecessary elements. Google thrives off the fact that people visit search engines in order to search, not to be swamped with content and links that have no relevance to them.

Still think simplicity is a commonly known idea?  Learn more about simplicity by picking up a copy of Maeda’s book.

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