At every opportunity in the past, I have gone on and on about simplicity. As the companies I have worked for have been in increasing stages of ‘getting it’, it has been less about spouting off Charles Mingus quotes and more about actually, you know, doing something about it. Such is the benefit of personal progress, I suppose. The interesting thing is that while everyone talks about simplicity for every aspect of design and product development, the discussion seems to end in dogma: Simple is always better. Time and time again, the same examples come up “They said the iPhone needs a physical keyboard, but look!”, “They said Twitter needed to allow more that 140 characters, but look!”, and of course the very platform I am currently blogging on: “They said tumblr needed comments, but look!”…

Yes, these are varying levels of successful products where the minds behind it had a vision that they took over customer requests, both real and imagined. They held onto that vision in face of another dogmatic argument, that the customer is always right. Give them what they want, don’t think you can know them better than they do, etc. I respect Steve Jobs, Ev Williams, and David Karp a huge amount for sticking to their vision. I also loved Donald Norman’s rebuttal on this concept, if only for the honesty and willingness to say what many seem to be afraid to say:

Simplicity is overrated. Users/Purchasers will go for the most apparently complex interface/cell phone/washing machine because this complexity denotes features, which denotes value. (Read the article to check my paraphrasing)

So, no answers here, I wouldn’t be so arrogant. Just talking this one out. Here is where I am landing:

1. Simplicity is good. Simplicity is very very hard.

2. If it were easy, anyone could do it, and it wouldn’t be a topic for discussion.

3. To stick to your vision over customer requests, you better make sure it is worth sticking to. Most are not.

4. Simplicity is not the overall goal.

5. Customer delight is the overall goal. This is different from satisfaction. Satisfaction is what you aim for when you slap requested features on. I think delight is what you aim for when you help people find a new way to do what they need. A better way.

6. Simplicity doesn’t ensure delight, but complexity muddles your opportunities for delight.

7. Never listen to a guy who takes 7 points to explain his current thinking on simplicity.

Here we go…

Some pieces I liked on the topic:

• 37Signal’s take
• Garr Reynolds
• Seth Godin
• John Maeda, of course
• and the greatest proponent of simplicity, Colin Chapman