On keeping things simple
Recently I’ve gotten obsessed with simplicity. I feel like some of the most beautiful things are so simple. This can show up in minimalist design — with the less is more mantra. It could show up as the most complex creation being so easy to use. We’ve also heard the saying that if you can’t explain a concept in kids terms you don’t follow understand it.
As an engineer interested in design, one of what I’ve been fascinated about is simplicity showing up in personal profiles. Take for example Glenn Hitchcock site (opens in a new tab). I have to say when I first landed on it, it felt like a breadth of fresh air. Why? The lack of need to emphasise skill/experience with complex animations or layout but let works do the showing and talking. As a Director of Design at Vercel, this really increased my respect for him and gave a peak into their thought process and approach to design.
Spaces
Another way my love for simplicity shows up for me is in spaces, architecture, and interior design. A sense of organization and simplicity brings me calmness and peace. It allows room for thoughts, room to relax and grow, expand or contract. Recently though I’m beginning to walk the line of spaces being bare and spaces with character, I think there needs to be fine balance. I guess sometimes it comes down to the function of the space. Overall, character can help define an identity or feeling for a space while maintaining simplicity and organisation. We also don’t want to be out of touch with reality or nature (if you will) again this is all subjective to intention for the space.
Favourite spaces in my apartment
Product Engineering
There are two ways to look at this, perhaps both deserving their own section. One is the product view and second is the development/engineering view. I’ll start with the product view.
Product
Have you heard the phrase “Genius is taking the complex and making it simple”, there are many similar phrases like that and all talking about making things as simple as possible. I strongly believe this it is the whole essence of a product and it what differentiates a good product from a bad one. The idea of a product is to make things simpler and not harder and so if it make whatever it’s trying to solve harder, or creates a non-existent problem only to solve it — bad product. Funny enough this happens a lot in the tech community. To ground this idea more, a good example is Google, solving search across the internet.
Now as with most things in life, there’s a spectrum, and different products lie at different ends and some right at the middle.
Engineering
Lack of comments, lack of documentation, poor naming, … are all features of a bad codebase. Have you ever interacted with a library or API and be like wow so simple, so well thought out and easy to use with great documentation. Or another where you ask “why??” or “really?” Feels like those contrasting emotions tell enough of the story. There’s a lot that can be written in this space and I’m no saint I’m learning everyday, simplifying everyday. Truth be told your first iteration solving problems might be that great and very complex and yes there’s need for that at the early stages but having the posture or mindset of simplifying things goes a very long way.
Taking it home.
Keep things simple. Find inspiration from other people, places, projects, …refine refine refine
No artificial intelligence was used to generate content for this essay