Complexity as a requirement
“The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.”
– Alfred North Whitehead
This was also the first quotation in Donald Norman’s book Living with Complexity. In this book he goes on explaining that people often ask him “why is our technology so complex?”, “why can’t things be simple?” he replies “Why? Because life is complex.”
It might seem strange for a person that has the internet moniker “SimpleScott” to be so aligned with the opening thesis of Norman’s book. But after 20 years working at the intersection of brand and technology, I’ve seen first hand the result of not understanding the difference between the complex and the complicated, and I’ve began realizing that the simplest answer is likely not the right one.
When asked to make something simple, my reaction is a roll of the eye.
Let me provide a little context for those that are not at the forefront of technology or even more specifically apart of the Silly-con Valley tech culture. Any app you download, has a team of people that plan, design, and engineer the social experiments that they call, “Products”. These “Products” attract you because you derive some utility or entertainment from the service. The Products that succeed often have a “stickiness” to them, a hook, that keeps bringing you back time and time again. The same is true with the physical products we use. Once you have a battery-powered hand drill the chance that you are going to pick up a common screwdriver dramatically decreases. Another example was the brilliance of Skype. The second one could download an app and have a long-distance or international phone call without the expense of dialing a bunch of numbers, rendered an entire industry obsolete. The product of voice messaging, simplified our daily lives. It made something once complicated and expensive, simple and cheap.
But what happens next is complex.
The proliferation of services exploded as did online messaging in general. How many apps do you check on a daily basis to see the number of incoming messaging or jump into to have a video chat? I’m sure it’s more than 1. If you think about it, it’s amazing that so many applications exist for a service that has been so commoditized that it is practically worthless. How much do you spend on all of those messaging apps you are logging into? I’m pretty sure it’s close to 0 and which one do you enjoy the most? Before you answer that, I bet I can read your mind. Is the answer… “that’s complicated…” or “it depends…” or, “who am I messaging…” or “what am I messaging”.
Our technology can’t be simple because life is complex.
The goal at almost every technology company is to get you to engage with their product. If you are one of those planners, designers or engineers at a tech company, your job is to think, design, and build the features that will keep bringing you back. A chat window that allows you to add a gif, a messaging app where the message disappears shortly after you send it, the ability to turn yourself into a talking shit emoji. They’ve all been done. Messaging apps are like the weeds of the App garden. Right when you’ve picked em all— another one pops up—this time slightly different. It’s probably safe to say that the next big hit will likely not be the messaging app where you can only use alpha numeric characters, that display on a white background in a simple monospaced typeface. The simple messaging app is just not the answer.
Making things simple is not really what people want.
