Evan Williams & the Universal Law of Simplicity

When designing software, the temptation is to add features. If the users aren’t loving our app as much as we need them to, it must be because we need to add that extra feature. That’ll get them! Rarely does this have the impact we desire, but the cycle continues and we add more and more features in the hope that, one day, we hit the sweet spot.We forget the universal law of simplicity.

One of the founders of Twitter, Evan Williams, presenting the powerful idea that less is more at LeWeb3 (LeWeb channel is here). Twitter itself was built around the constraint that the primary communication platform was SMS and that the web was just another interface. Twitter is dead simple to grasp. Tell everyone what you are doing in less than 140 characters of text. People can follow you and you can follow them. Following means you see what they are saying. There’s no video. No audio. No categories. No complex privacy settings. I don’t need to read the help pages because I can look at the home page and get it almost immediately.

There are a couple of powerful dynamics behind this that I want to talk about.

People not Features

Technology is a means to an end and not and end in itself. Users don’t put photos on the web because of the cool new embed feature, or the API that allows them to upload from their mobile phone. They simply and purely want to share their photos with other people. Great technology serves a simple need that people have. Twitter is an inspiration. It asks “What are you doing?” and we answer. In your app, what is the user trying to do?

Creativity: How it Works

Complexity is the enemy of creativity. In a former life I was a theatre director. I ran a course on improvisation at the West Australian Academy or Performing Arts. I began this course with a simple exercise in which I asked the group to form a circle (we do that a lot in theatre) and for a volunteer to step into the circle to do anything they liked. They had a infinite palette of possibility and the result was paralysis. Their eyes filled with fear as they free-falled through their minds trying to think of something interesting to do. Introducing constraints quickly changed the dynamic: “You are very heavy” or “This ball is precious” or “It’s dark”.  Constraints caused wonderful, creative moments to happen.  It’s a lot like “Tell me what you are doing in less than 140 characters”
Seesmic is bringing the universal law of simplicity to video which can be the most paralysing of all web experiences. I find that if I can film anything I like, wherever I like with my camera and then edit it in Adobe Premiere using After Effects to add titles, before uploading to YouTube I usually give up. It’s too much and I lose the most important thing: Something to say. With Seesmic, I press the big red button and do something. Awesome. I can’t wait to see some of the moments that come out of the Seesmic community.

Check out Evan’s presentation for some more great examples of how constraints can make great software.

Oh, and if you want to add me on Twitter, here I am.

Filed under Software Development, Software I Like, Uncategorized | Comment (1)