Soapbox Engage Blog

In nearly every project and product we develop at PICnet, I constantly ask one question that likely annoys our team more than a day working under Steve Jobs: "can't you make it more intuitive?"

Note that I don't say, "can you dumb it down so that a banana slug, without so much as an opposable thumb or high-speed Internet access, can still work this?"

That's an important difference. Not the banana slug part, but the idea that dumbing down technology for the sake of simplicity should not be a goal we strive to achieve. Instead, I'm happy to see that like-minded people like Dan over at Adaptive Path feel the same way. In his posting entitled Strive for Elegance, not Simplicity, Dan lays out his thoughts on this matter, and focuses on elegance in his designs rather than simplicity.

Rather than simplicity, I try to make my designs elegant, which is something different. As I've noted before, simplicity can remove something precious from users: control. Users sometimes prefer having more complexity because it can sometimes provide users with more control. Even if, as Norman rightly notes, users don't use the controls, there is something about having them that is comforting.

As our clients have seen, and the world will see when we release Soapbox Events, we're constantly striving to make sure that our offerings are both simple and utilitarian, with a splash of eye candy design. This makes sure our clients have both ease-of-use and control, which to be honest, is quite a challenge. Stay tuned, and challenge the developers...and designers. Neither is always right.