"Simple" and "Experience" are the two core selling points of today's product promotion. If you read the current articles related to UI and UX design carefully, you will find that everyone has almost persistent requirements for "simplicity".
In today's design field, they seem to be politically correct. But is this really the case?
. Simple misunderstanding
. Why do designers always try their best to make the entire design work appear more "informative" in the "simple" design?
When Party A and PM submit their requirements and revision plans, they always have words such as "bigger", "richer" and "too simple"?
Do we really have no misunderstandings about "simple" and "simple"?
Every UX designer who has done research usually knows one thing. When users conduct research and interviews, they do not always express their true feelings, but rather "those who feel right."
The true meaning behind "simple" should be "easy to understand", easier to understand, and it does not seem difficult to master, and this is the user's real intention conveyed by the word "simple". Life that is too complex itself is the driving force that drives us to pursue "simplicity" that is easy to understand. But, is it really enough to do it simply? Of course not.
judges things through comparison, which is an evolved thinking instinct from humans. For drawing software, people always compare it with Photoshop. For a new mobile phone, users will always use iPhone to compare with it. The same is true for designing
. Whether it is the user, the client or the designer himself, he will always compare it with the design works he has seen. The judgment system created by his past experience is an implicit comparison object.
Of course, for "complex" designs, most users usually do not express their preferences quickly and clearly. Because the word complex itself hides the meaning of "not necessarily so easy to understand and control".
But another layer of complex itself means "more" or "more powerful" in function.
Putting aside the linguistic expressions and carefully comparing various comparison decisions in life, you will find that what users really love is often limited and understandable "medium complexity", rather than "simple" mentioned in marketing and verbal feedback. A more accurate statement is: products that look simple, easy to understand, and have many functions (even relatively more products).
Don't avoid the real thoughts deep down you: people will feel bored with too many simple/simple things, and it is difficult to understand too complex, and therefore they will also feel confused.
What really makes people feel comfortable is more about things that make people feel "moderately complicated".
The complex world has never changed
The world has always been complex, and most things have some complex components that cannot be eliminated.
starts from place A and arrives at place B, and there must be space displacement in the middle. The ancients needed to complete the long-distance raid by walking, using ox carts or horse carriages. In modern society, people have more means of transportation to complete spatial migration more easily. If you have determined to use a vehicle as the main means of transportation, those who like to enjoy driving can choose to drive by themselves, while users who enjoy being served can use the APP to take advantage of the sharing economy to order an online car-hailing vehicle in an extremely convenient way and hand over the process to others.
It seems that everything is getting simpler and simpler, but the complex travel process and the efforts put into space movement are only passed on to more advanced technology. The products of the development of technologies such as automobiles and mobile APPs bear the complexity of travel itself, and for the objective world, it cannot be ignored. And "convenience" is just the user's subjective feeling.
This also involves the core law of conservation of complexity that we are going to discuss today.
What is the law of conservation of complexity
Law of conservation of complexity (Law of conservation of complexity) was proposed by Larry Tesla in 1984. Some people also named this law after him, which is the law of Tesla (I know what you think of, Tesla is Tesla). It is worth mentioning that the cut and paste functions that we commonly use in the UI menu today were first implemented by Tesler in the Smalltalk application in Xerox Star.
According to the law of conservation of complexity, each application has its inherent and irreducible complexity. Whether in the product development process or in the interaction process between users and products, this inherent complexity cannot be removed according to our wishes, and we can only try to adjust and balance.
And in real life, most things are the same. More simply, if you want to complete a task, you need to complete it through some specific steps and necessary links no matter what. We use mobile applications to do some things faster. The complex backend links are actually carried out to the service providers of the backend application, the APP developers and the smart devices in your hands, rather than not. The overall complexity of the whole thing itself is constant.
In the 1980s, when Larry Tesler was still working at Apple, he realized that the application itself is as important as how users use it.
In Larry Teslar's view, the various complex links in the application can actually be converted through reasonable design.
This delicate balance must be performed by a truly professional interaction design teacher. In the "Guidelines for Interaction Design" written by Dan Saffer, there was an interview discussing the law of conservation of complexity.
"Q: What rules are there that interaction designers cannot violate? "
"A: There is only one, that is, it must be designed for users."
"Q: How did you think of the law of conservation of complexity?"
"A: When the field of interaction design was still in a very primitive period, I was working at Xerox PARC at that time (the graphical user interface was just born) a user interface Consistency design is still a new perspective and is quite controversial. However, many of us believe that consistent and unified design is not only beneficial to users, but also to developers, because standards can be encapsulated in shared software libraries. If we establish standards and encourage consistent design, we can shorten the time and size of the product when it comes to the line. "
" Between 1983 and 1985, I worked for Apple and was a MacApp Develop object-oriented frameworks. In addition to Macintosh In addition to Toolbox (shared software library) and the application itself, I also inserted a ‘general application’ middle layer in the middle. This is an interactive program with windows, menus, and commands that you can use to create, open, save and print documents, and you can use it to build your actual application in an object-oriented way. ”
” To truly implement my ideas to Apple’s management and independent software vendors, I proposed the law of conservation of complexity, which I think should Applications have inherent, uneliminated, and unreplicable complexity. The only problem is who will bear this complexity. "
" At that time, the computer's processing capacity was not strong, the storage capacity was low, the speed was slow, but the price was very high. Therefore, the application must be designed to be extremely compact, and the ease of use was difficult to reach a very high level. Users had to face and deal with complex problems because the capabilities of the program were very limited. However, once commercial software was put into the market, it actually had to face thousands of users.If the product and event itself involves an indelible complexity problem, and millions of users waste a minute of dealing with it every day, and handing it over to developers, it takes an extra week to develop, so how should we choose this problem? Should I let users have a little trouble to free developers, or should I let developers work overtime for an additional week? Whose time is more important to your business? Generally speaking, for mass-market software, unless your product is a continuous monopoly product, the user's time is more important than your own. "
" The existence of the middle layer of this 'general application' is to better solve this problem. It makes it easier for developers to develop and also can bring users more easily and useable products as much as possible. This only makes this inherent complexity easier to transfer, and the efficiency of developers is improved, but it does not eliminate the complexity itself. ”
Since then, as a professional reference, the law of conservation of complexity has begun to be widely known in the fields of user experience and interaction design. The debate about who will bear complexity itself reflects the universality of the law of conservation of complexity, not limited to the fields of software and application.
According to Bruce Tognazzini (Apple No. 66 employee and founder of Apple's human-computer interactive interface team) said that people always strive to maintain or continuously increase the complexity of their lives. This is also a aspect of users' cognitive bias towards "complexity" and "simple".
Soil of moderately complex design
Many practitioners and users have always questioned the popular simple design (not to mention the daily needs of Party A's bosses). Western society, which has experienced the baptism of the wave of modernism, has soil for simple design. In the East, whether in China or Japan, the design of Huatuancun often gets more recognition, and this situation has a long history.
Even today, this difference between the East and the West is still deeply rooted. With the deep preference for "moderate complexity" in human nature, the design direction of designers can actually be clearer in design decisions.
So, in the case of conserving complexity, the real goal of designers should be to create "moderate complexity"? Combined with the positioning of the product itself, the needs of users and markets, at least the adjustment direction of many product designs is like this.
Whether it is sports events or various popular games, they usually show a certain degree of complexity. The complexity that users cannot fully control and the changing possibilities contained in it allow these things to have In the depth that users can continue to explore, we often call it "playability", which is one of the qualities that fascinate things.
However, things that are too complex will often directly affect the speed of new users to get started. In other words, designers need to have sufficiently excellent design skills to "transfer complexity".
Traditional and simple are easy to use, not complex
In the design process, most problems start from simplifying the complexity. To reasonably simplify complex problems into good user experience, make users feel "reasonable" and "useful" or even just right, and unable to stop, there is a complete set of simplification ideas and design principles.
Make it easy for users to understand. Design that makes it easy for users to understand is no longer a "complex" design, so in the process of product design, try to help users understand various parts and details through various methods.
makes users feel controllable. When users feel that the product is easy to control, it will increase the inner sense of security during use. In the design of micro copy, precise, non-professional, and popular words are used. In the design of icons, try to use images that conform to general cognition, and use best practices that are familiar to users to help users master faster (such as using hamburger icons to represent menus, using magnifying glass icons to represent search engines, etc.).
modular design.Generally, complex processes and complex tasks are suitable for decomposition into clearer and easier to complete small modules, which makes it easier for users to execute.
instant learning. For functions that users did not know before, they need to be mastered by familiarity and learning. However, from research to actual conditions, it has proved that users always tend to do immediate learning when needed, and rarely take the initiative to learn in advance. In other words, adding corresponding tutorials to the location where you need to learn instead of providing tutorials in advance, which is more effective.
Add bootstrap and auxiliary tools. Smooth and clear interaction is a necessary condition for users to feel simplistic. With the help of tool tips and diverse guidance, the functions of the product can be clearly presented to users, so that the interaction process is as smooth as possible.
gamified design strategy
Among the various products we are familiar with, such as ERP systems, industry/professional/systemic software and large-scale games, they usually have relatively high complexity. Among these products, generally speaking, the ease of use and accessibility of games is higher, which is largely due to the advantages of games in design strategies.
The game itself has a high complexity, but this complexity is cleverly hidden in different ways. Gamified design strategies also provide a very worthy method and direction for coping with complexity.
User Journey. The user journey can be defined as the process and stages that the user goes through in the process of using the product. Designers can consciously build user experiences under this concept and design the overall UX based on user needs and interactions at different stages. The user's history divides different links and stages into modules, and provides users with constantly evolving and matching functions, services and experiences based on the user's own progress. This method allows the complexity of the product to be expanded in front of users in a hierarchical and sequential manner. In this article, "The essence of gamified design is to design UX in combination with user history", there is a detailed explanation of the operating mechanism and usage methods of user history.
Task and challenge mechanism. Task mechanisms are often used in combination with user history. Complex goals and dismemberment become different tasks, and they are modularly and phased to be completed. Users are more likely to understand products and services in this process, and the complexity is reduced in this process. Regarding this issue, the article "How tasks and challenges work in gamified design" is explained in more detail.
Of course, there are more ways to simplify the complexity in gamified design. You can learn more here in "Improving user participation, what are the common gamified design skills".
Potential risks of “over” simplification
The minimalist design is not without risk, and there is no doubt that it is.
Many high-end brand designs hide their complexity behind the brand. Users who have a sense of brand will appreciate this because its complexity is visible to them; but for many users who don’t understand it, they will be discouraged by this "empty" design.
is hidden in the complexity itself, must be safe. Powerful artificial intelligence allows users to get an available answer by simply providing a voice command. How simple is it! The complexity of this service is hidden in complex artificial intelligence, powerful computing power, as well as instant and fast network services. Once the server is offline or the network is disconnected, this simple experience no longer exists, which is the risk that "over-" simplification is required.
Conclusion
The value of the law of conservation of complexity does not only come from the methods and strategies involved in it, but it can itself help designers look at many design issues more deeply and make truly reasonable design strategies.
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