Every time we add a feature or an option to our designs there is a cost. The cognitive (plain-talk: thinking) load for the user goes up. Sometimes the benefits of that feature or option make it worth it. Often they don’t. And yes, as smart designers we know some of the best ways of representing those features so they have a minimal mental footprint, but it is still a trade-off we need to consciously make.
And unfortunately (or just realistically), we are often the only ones carrying the Let’s Keep It Simple can. Product people can just be myopically focussed on their particular feature and want it get it into the product at whatever cost to the overall user experience. But that’s partly their job and their perspective. What we bring to the table is that overall perspective for how best to arrange (or remove) the pieces to make the whole experience sing.
But it’s not just “evil” Product trying to load up our pages with all manner of things. We have to fight that inclination ourselves. One of the cold realities of design is that it is easier to add than subtract. It has to be our mantra to be always saying “how can we simplify, how can we simplify, how can we simplify…?” It takes huge discipline and a whole lot of thought.
And guess what? We don’t have to give users every option under the sun – something for every possible situation. Sometimes (and often) that just costs too much – too much time to develop, too much time to user test, too much time to specify, but definitely too much time to comprehend.
And interestingly, we are a lot better at seeing that in the real world than online. There is a point where there are more Chiodo shirts than can fit in my cupboard, no matter how much denial I want to wrap around that reality. The real world has a way of enforcing “what? are you crazy?” constraints. In the virtual world it is all too easy to just keep extending the page, adding another tab, designing another dialog, adding another level to the page structure.
37signals, defenders of simple, not surprisingly have some good things to say about this topic in their recent “Outsourcing Choice” post.
