Author: John Maeda

Publisher: The MIT Press

Comments: In this short book, John Maeda from MIT’s Media Lab offers ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology and design. In Maeda’s world, improvement is not synonymous with more. The clean look of the iPod has made simplicity fashionable. Yet, the paradox is that we want something that is simple and easy to use at the same time as we want something that can do everything we want it to do.

Maeda's first law of simplicity is "Reduce." It's not necessarily beneficial to add technology features just because we can. And the features that we do have must be organized (Law 2) in a sensible hierarchy so users aren't distracted by features and functions they don't need. But simplicity is not less just for the sake of less. Skip ahead to Law 9: "Failure: Accept the fact that some things can never be made simple." Maeda's concise guide to simplicity in the digital age shows us how this idea can be a cornerstone of organisations and their products, how it can drive both business and technology. We can learn to simplify without sacrificing comfort and meaning, and we can achieve the balance described in Law 10. This law, which Maeda calls "The One," tells us: "Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful."