Professional PHP

PHP Programming, Web Development, PHP Advocacy and PHP Best Practices.
« Comparing PHP with other languages
James Gosling on PHP »

Extreme Simplicity

March 1st, 2006

Could this be the manifesto of “Extreme Simplicity?”

10 fundamental rules for the age of user experience technology:

  1. More features isn’t better, it’s worse.
  2. You can’t make things easier by adding to them.
  3. Confusion is the ultimate deal-breaker.
  4. Style matters
  5. Only features that provide a good user experience will be used.
  6. Any feature that requires learning will only be adopted by a small fraction of users.
  7. Unused features are not only useless, they can slow you down and diminish ease of use
  8. Users do not want to think about technology: what really counts is what it does for them.
  9. Forget about the killer feature. Welcome to the age of the killer user-experience.
  10. Less is difficult, that’s why less is more

Consumer devices or frameworks, we are a product of our times.

Watch and contemplate.

Filed Under

  • Software Design, Usability, Web Design

Related Posts

  • The Paradox of Choice
  • Keywords and Language Simplicity
  • Zend PHP Framework not a rumor
  • Agile Development for an Agile Military
  • James Gosling on PHP
Both comments and pings are currently closed.

17 Responses to “Extreme Simplicity”

  1. Jared says:
    3/2/2006 at 5:26 am

    This video has been removed by the user.

    :/

    Ren

  2. Curious George says:
    3/2/2006 at 6:02 am

    More likely is “this video has been removed by Microsoft’s lawyers”. That’s a shame, it was quite funny.

  3. Jeff says:
    3/2/2006 at 6:33 am

    Link updated. Ah, the hazards of linking to youtube. Good URLs don’t change. Especially a few hours after you link to them. :( Hope this one lasts longer.

  4. Barb says:
    3/2/2006 at 10:54 am

    Now this was a pretty interesting post…

  5. Christopher Thompson says:
    3/2/2006 at 4:03 pm

    Some things that strike me about Extreme Simplicity are:

    1. Good design is still important. In fact, brilliant design is really what is needed — and the knowledge and vision that it ncessary to achieve it.

    2. Interface is what it is all about because that is how people use the stuff you create. For classes, libraries and frameworks interface is critical.

    3. External simplicity may mean internal complexity — that makes our jobs doubly interesting.

    You link to Ruby on Rails and it is interesting that the first thing that most people hear about ROR is, “You can get an app up and running in …”

    So who’s the best rapid in a rapid world?

  6. Harry Fuecks says:
    3/3/2006 at 3:46 am

    [via] Somewhat related link here: “Yahoo’s counterproductive pyramid” – actually best summarized by one of the comments;

    users cease to be passive as soon as you give them the tools of creation. Instead of assuming that 90% of your users are passive, assume that 100% are potential content creators, then build the tools that enable that to happen.

    Otherwise some of these things are also relative such as “You can’t make things easier by adding to them.” – related to frameworks, particularily ORM, if you know SQL what you did with WACT’s db API makes a whole lot more sense than any kind of ORM. And somehow feel it’s probably easier to teach someone SQL than it is to teach someone about objects but perhaps I’m wrong there.

  7. Peter Hodge says:
    3/5/2006 at 4:50 pm

    John Cooper successfully drags this topic out to 288 pages in The Inmates are Running the Asylum [amazon.com]. His Silicon Valley ego can get a little annoying, but his book was essential in getting me ready to build a web application compatible with the average middle-aged woman. Well worth reading.

  8. Monica Ricci says:
    6/3/2006 at 7:15 am

    As a non hi-tech person running a business, I have a very low tolerance for hassle. And I can tell you that simplicity is soooo key for me when operating on the web, using software and even when dealing with vendors on the phone.

    The original list of ten mentioned that “confusion is the ultimate dealbreaker”. A marketing expert I know says “a confused mind always says NO”. Same concept and I couldn’t agree more. If something either starts out confusing or becomes confusing along the way, I’m outta there in search of another solution.

    If software isn’t intuitive, I bail. Ok, maybe I’m just a big baby, but I just want the tools I use to be as easy as possible to get the result I want so I can move along. I think any technology company can build tools that are simple for techies to use… the mark of a great technology (IMHO) is one that can build tools that are simple for techno-dorks like me to use.

    If I have to take a class to use something, I probably won’t. (Unless it’s a matter of business life or death) A perfect example of simplicity making me happy is my blog. I am still flabbergasted at how simple it is to create a blog that looks all fancy-schmancy. Sure there’s a slight learning curve, and I’m sure I’ll continue to learn how to improve it, but I was literally able to get the first iteration of my blog up and running immediately without downloading a manual or calling tech support. And that’s key.

  9. The Paradox of Choice - Professional PHP says:
    7/13/2006 at 10:26 pm

    [...] I think these are important ideas in the quest for extreme simplicity. [...]

  10. Ossi Lehtinen says:
    11/10/2006 at 3:36 pm

    Although I generally agree with this list, I must say that this kind of an approach might lead to creativity being constricted. I mean with freedom often comes complexity. Making things simple can turn things into black and white.

    That being said this is perfect approach for making simple apps, which aren’t supposed to do that much.

  11. Extreme Simplicity - Professional PHP says:
    5/3/2009 at 7:43 am

    [...] the article here: Extreme Simplicity – Professional PHP Share and [...]

  12. internet marketing masters degree online says:
    12/22/2009 at 3:30 pm

    She is mix.Mexican-lebanese .And by the way she was born in Veracruz,Mexico. Therefore she is Mexican

  13. Shawnda Ketzler says:
    12/27/2011 at 4:23 am

    Had the same problem. On XP the only account that can log on to VM IWA is the administrator account and not another with administrator priviliges. On Vista I could log on with an account created with administrator priviliges. As a footnote, the VMware Host Agent startup type (from services.msc) was set to “deactivated”. Jesus, that gave me some problems. It is now to set to Automatic. Why on earth was it set as default to deactivated? Answers on a postcard please……..

  14. Milton Kuse says:
    1/10/2012 at 5:05 am

    Blogs ou should be reading…

  15. Barb Geyer says:
    7/17/2012 at 10:05 am

    what are the benefits of green tea, you have got an ideal weblog here! might you like to make some invite posts on my blog?

  16. Roni Beauregard says:
    7/20/2012 at 2:19 am

    I’ve really noticed that fixing credit activity needs to be conducted with techniques. If not, you may find yourself endangering your position. In order to succeed in fixing your credit ranking you have to ascertain that from this time you pay all of your monthly expenses promptly before their appointed date. It’s really significant because by not really accomplishing that, all other measures that you will decide to try to improve your credit positioning will not be effective. Thanks for expressing your tips.

  17. Gilbert Moatz says:
    7/31/2012 at 2:49 pm

    When some one searches for his required thing, therefore he/she desires to be available that in detail, therefore that thing is maintained over here.

    Subscribe Feed
    Share Subscribe to this blog…
    Share Bookmark or share this page…
  • About

    My name is Jeff Moore. I'm a PHP programmer living in San Francico and working for a startup.

    More about me…

  • Categories (Home)

    • Agile Methods (14)
    • Mac (14)
    • Misc (18)
    • Open Source (14)
    • PHP (99)
    • Software Design (29)
    • Usability (14)
    • Web Design (20)
  • Recent Comments

    • rsync to remote server via ssh  37
      Petr Halounek, Penni Tomasino, Rodney Kohnen [...]
    • WordPress BBCode Plugin  30
      wepniveth, Pamella Philipps, evakuat [...]
    • PEAR Templates  18
      Sang Bellotti, Kandice Sansing, car insurance estimates for teenagers [...]
    • Extreme Simplicity  15
      Gilbert Moatz, Roni Beauregard, Barb Geyer [...]
    • Manual Memory Management is Dead  6
      Grass Fed Filet Mignon, Kellie Carello, PAPANDOR [...]
    • Friendster wrapup: does MySQL scale  38
      Ollie Joya, nfl jersey on sale, selling scrap gold [...]
    • The Coding Apprentice  51
      fkawau, Annamae Mccane, Boca Raton Personal Injury [...]
    • The Legality of Republishing RSS Feeds  30
      dasfdsfsd, reebok authentic nfl jersey, Tory Rennemeyer [...]
    • Exceptional PHP  7
      Sports, The Click, Laraine Waterhouse [...]
    • PDO versus MDB2  42
      selling silver coins, Oliver Luongo, ddkoaorpa [...]
  • Recent Posts

    • Richard Thomas
    • ZendCon: Writing Maintainable PHP Code
    • Looking Towards the Cloud
    • Holiday Tech Support
    • Closures are coming to PHP
    • php | tek Wrapup
    • php | tek 2008
    • Sarah Snow Stever
    • Benchmarking PHP’s Magic Methods
    • The Endpoints of the Scale of Stupidity on Video
  • Site

    • Archives
    • Log in
  • Search