Simplicity can be a loaded term. Numerous sources define simplicity as follows:
- ‘…the fact that it is not complicated and can be understood or done easily’ – Collins
- ‘…the quality of being easy to understand or use’ – Britannica
- ‘…the state of being simple, uncomplicated, or uncompounded’ – Merriam-Webster
When thinking about simplicity I translate this into:
Creating products that are easy to use, understand, and remember (intuitive), without sacrificing functionality or value. Simplicity, if done right, can help attract and retain customers, reduce costs and errors, and improve a product’s performance and quality.
Just a short side note on quality… While having many meanings, one definition of quality that resonates with me is the set of inherent properties of an object or service that satisfies a set of stated or implied needs. Simplicity and quality are symbiotic – you can’t have one without the other. And quality, like simplicity, has multiple “dimensions” that help build my overall perception of quality through the experience of using a product.
Simplicity beyond what we see
Simplicity is not just about the design of an interface or the visual aspects of a product. Simplicity stretches far beyond the end user experience. I often fall back on the automobile industry as an example. Until recently, underneath the hood of a vehicle is a combustion engine and all its moving parts, the timing and synchronicity of many components, fluids, electrical systems, exhaust, and so on. There’s the body work of the vehicle, the braking systems, transmission, safety components. And then there are the internal components, many of which we see and feel, that contribute to the driving experience. These components can include comfort, ergonomics, driver and passenger controls, entertainment system, and sound insulation.
Simplicity, however, is conditional on the persona and role of the end user. A mechanic’s definition of simplicity is different from that of the driver or passenger.
With software products, simplicity extends beyond the interface and depends on the user persona, which can span from data scientist, data engineer, support staff, line of business user, administrator, dev ops, and so forth.
Simplicity is also about how products are architected, built, configured, deployed, managed, and supported. And simplicity extends beyond product development and product management to marketing and sales – how products are positioned, messaged, targeted, packaged, priced, sold, and accessed.
Abstraction
Abstraction is a key element of simplicity. It helps hide the complexity of a system, leading to reduced cognitive load, meaning that a user needs to spend less time trying to figure out what is important/relevant vs not. On the other hand, product teams need to be cautious not to oversimplify or create too much of an abstraction that can lead to an increased cognitive load because the design doesn’t meet the user’s mental models of what should be present in a specific solution. This is where standards help; by adhering to the user’s mental models as well as established domain standards, we can ensure that a user will have an easier time understanding and getting value from an offering.
In the automobile example, the intricacies and complexities of the mechanics of a vehicle have been abstracted away from the driver so they can focus on the key aspects of the driving experience. Additionally, safety standards and ergonomics make the driving experience predictable and intuitive.
Another example of abstraction is operating systems. MacOS and ubuntu are both powerful operating systems. One can be set up out-of-the-box by a non-technical user / consumer, the other has many configurations that are available for more technical users. This doesn’t mean that the experience needs to be more complex for the technical user, but they may want to look under the hood for more control.
Simplicity boils down to meeting or exceeding users’ expectations of what something can do to help them achieve a goal in the most efficient and effective manner.
First Impressions
The term “first impressions count” is very relevant to simplicity. If an organization can’t use – or even install or get a product up and running with minimal user effort and intervention – it’s a failure. Imagine experiencing these problems during a trial and demo of a product. Why would a user continue?
What we see
It’s important to use clear and consistent language throughout a product. Language is how we communicate to end users, and how we influence the experience. Simple, consistent words, terminology, and phrases across the interface, content and messages help familiarize users so that they remember, understand, and can relate to the look and feel of a task. This helps the user feel comfortable. Clear and consistent language can help minimize confusion, ambiguity, and frustration while increasing user confidence and satisfaction.
Focus on the goal
One thing product designers and engineers can often fall short on is focusing on what the product is trying to achieve in terms of outcomes. Focusing on the core problem throughout the product can help prioritize the most important functions and tasks that a product should enable while avoiding unnecessary features, complexity, or distractions that do not contribute to the end goal.
Visual hierarchy and alignment
Applying a consistent visual hierarchy and alignment to a product’s layout, elements, and content can help organize and present a product’s information and features in a way that reflects their importance, order, and relationship. Attributes such as color, contrast, spacing, layout, and typography can help focus the design on the most relevant or critical parts of the user experience. Alignment helps create balance, harmony, and clarity.
Minimize user input and effort
User input and effort is the amount of information, actions, and decisions that an end user must provide in order to achieve their goals while using a product. Keeping effort to a minimum must be achieved without compromising the functionality and value of a product. Defaults, autofills, autocompletes, suggestions, shortcuts, and automation are key elements that help save time, reduce errors, and enhance the overall user experience. AI and generative AI can also help by learning about users, personas, behaviors (and even the operating infrastructure and environment) by suggesting or predicting next steps and actions for the user.
Simplicity in a complex hybrid, multicloud world
Being able to abstract the complexity of underlying infrastructures, particularly in a hybrid multicloud environment enables product developers to focus on building and delivering products that customers love. Red Hat OpenShift is a good example of this. It provides the flexibility for customers to scale across any infrastructure using the leading open-source steward. Red Hat OpenShift is a Kubernetes-based platform that allows vendors to deploy software through a container-based model, delivering greater agility, control, portability, and reuse of microservices. This container-based approach also helps across development, test, deployment, and management of products, and transparent elastic use and virtualization of compute and storage resources.
It also allows products to share a common control plane and data plane, which helps make the administration and integration of diverse services simpler and easier. Organizations can leave their data in places where it already resides or makes best business sense to store it, while virtualizing many data stores to appear as one unified source.
Clearly, how a product is architected and composed can greatly enhance the development, test, installation, management, support, and overall user experience of a product.
Summary
Simplicity is a fundamental driver to a product’s, or service’s success. Simplicity helps deliver a quality experience and vice versa. Simplicity can be viewed as an ethos that should be applied ubiquitously through a product – and the product lifecycle – without compromising function, capability, and performance. Listening and acting on continuous external customer feedback helps ground us to what simplicity means from an end user point of view.
Abstraction is a key tenet of simplicity. It is at the core of how a product or service meets or exceeds users’ expectations of what something can do to help them achieve a goal in the most efficient and effective manner. But there must be balance – too much or too little abstraction can increase a user’s cognitive load. If implemented correctly, simplicity will help an organization build and deliver products that customers love, bring existing customers back for more, drive loyalty and retention, and attract new customer acquisitions. In short, simplicity helps drives your bottom line.