Summer School 2006
After Ivrea, Roma, Split and Timisoara the 5th Convivio Summer School came to Edinburgh, August 14th-25th.
The theme this year was: "Technology, Enjoying or Enduring it? Visions, Boundaries and Transformations in Extending or Replacing Human Capacities."
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The complexity of simplicity.
In “The Complexity of Simplicity” Luke Wroblewski looks at how simplicity, often hailed as the holy grail of interface design, is quite hard to get right (if at all):
“Many of us carry a few preconceived notions about simplicity. We assume things that are easy to use don’t have a lot of options and, as a result, shouldn’t appear cluttered when we first encounter them.
Conversely, a perception of complexity can turn customers, clients, or business stakeholders off before they ever actually use a product.
Cultural context can also sway people’s perceptions of simplicity.
Regardless of the specific biases of individuals, notions of perceived complexity can prevent potential users from discovering the simplicity of a product’s actual use.
While there are many reasons why keeping things simple is difficult, I’ve encountered the following three causes quite frequently:
1.
Perceived simplicity can often conflict with actual simplicity of usage.
2.
Actions that provide real value, and drive revenue, often have formidable learning curves.
3.
Gradual engagement, the most frequently cited solution for managing complexity, is actually quite difficult to design and build.”
This entry was posted on Monday, December 11th, 2006 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Interaction Design, User Experience, Human Centered Design, User Interface Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.