Living with complexity
by Donald A. Norman · first published 2010
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2011–2024first – last mentioned
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Donald Norman (of The Design of Everyday Things fame) talks about the various strategies for this in his newest book, Living With Complexity. It's an interesting problem because it turns out enough people follow the antisocial strategy of taking from the larger roll (what Berners-Lee calls K in his protocol) that both rolls will often run…
on “Tim Berners-Lee and the Toilet Paper Protocol” ↗Minimalism isn't timeless, minimalism itself is a trend in design. It's definitely a trend with merit, but it isn't some absolute truth to always strive towards. I would recommend reading "Living with Complexity" by Don Noarman for some interesting arguments about why complexity in design isn't inherently bad.
on “Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI, Part 2” ↗…of what simplicity means in programming. If you have any interest in the topic, I recommend Rich Hickey talk "Simplicity matters" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8tNMsozo0 My personal favorite is: Living with complexity 2010 by Don Norman (Author of Design of everyday things) https://www.amazon.ca/Living-Complexity-Donald-Norman/dp/026...
on “Simplistic programming is underrated” ↗Have you read the later book Living with Complexity? It is pretty much this topic; how to reconcile complexity and confusion. He talks a lot about reaching designs of irreducible complexity as a way to mitigate confusion. For what it’s worth, I’d say…
on “Do we think of Git commits as diffs, snapshots, and/or histories?” ↗…"Tesler's law of the conservation of complexity." Tesler described it as a tradeoff: making things easier for the user means making it more difficult for the designer or engineer.” ― Donald A. Norman, Living with Complexity
on “First, it was Craigslist, next it's Zapier” ↗This reminds me of what Don Norman quotes in "living with complexity" around how people buy the microwaves with all the buttons even though it's harder to use.
on “First, it was Craigslist, next it's Zapier” ↗…curve. It's what prompted Don Norman to write the article around 2007 titled "Simplicity is not the Answer" - http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/simplicity_is_not_th.html (quoted in the blog post) and a book "Living with Complexity" - http://www.jnd.org/books/living-with-complexity.html