Simplessity » A focus on simplicity.

We've released a great application for business mileage tracking called Mileage Pad. It simplifies the task of keeping track of mileage for business, medical, or charitable purposes.

A great tool for people who need to keep track of miles driven for work, or for other purposes.

Check out this article called Three Universal methods of reducing complexity - it is written for programmers but perhaps it could be generalized.

The three ways to reduce complexity from this article are:

1. Partitioning - Split thing up into easy to manage chunks.
2. Hierarchy - You could also think of this as context, details emerge as the task at hand drills down into more detailed views.
3. Independence - If you have intertwined components it is much harder to change one of them.

Wouldn't it be nice if your trash can could open it's lid all by itself? Well this new trash can from SimpleHuman (a brand that makes tools for efficient living) does just that. When your hand is within 6 inches of trash can sensor it opens the lid for you. This is handy because often times your hands are full, or dirty when you are dealing with garbage.

Smashing Magazine has put together a list of 50 web sites with Simple and Clean Design.

Let's put it straight - simplicity is more complex than you probably think it is. To design a website in user friendly tones, presenting all information and removing unnecessary details isn't easy.

There is a great post over on Presentation Zen on the signal to noise ratio.

One of the coolest, most useful books I have on my shelf is Universal Principles of Design. This is a beautifully simple book and one that is immensely useful, a must for professionals and leaders from any discipline. The subtitle of the book pretty much sums it up: "100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through Design." Even trained designers will want this book somewhere on their shelf.

I have been reading Edward R. Tufte's book: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (a great book btw) and found this quote in the Introduction:

Furthermore, of all methods for analyzing and communicating statistical information, well-designed data graphics are usually the simplest and at the same time the most powerful.

Here's a quote on simplicity from Albert Einstein:

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

That quote sums up why making things simple can be difficult.

Less source code is better. This is almost always true. The exceptions to this are so rare that every time you think you've found one you should REALLY doubt yourself. Less lines of source code almost always means less code that new programmers have to understand when they come on the project. It means less stuff for you to remember next year when you are in the middle of another version. It means fewer places for you to have mistyped something. It means fewer instructions to execute. It means fewer things to change when you re-architect.

- Wil Shipley

The Creating Passionate Users Blog has a good blog entry titled: Don't give in to feature demands!

But when we've blended all the colors into one muddy blob, then nobody hates us, and nobody is delighted, excited, or turned on by what we do. We become mediocre. Usually the worst place to be.

Basically she is saying if you listen to every user request your product will become a jack of all trades, master of none.

Here's a hidden bookshelf from Umbra:

Via: Rachel Cunliffe