A Philosophy of Restraint

Variant of a talk given at An Event Apart (Seattle), ESAD (Porto), Webshaped (Helsinki), Refresh (Edinburgh), and Reasons Festival (Brighton) during 2012. Some slides of work in progress removed.

With a wealth of ideas and tools at our disposal, we often muddle our messages and complicate our code.

We appreciate that less is usually more, yet stuff our sites to bursting point, failing to be economical with what we have.

We must know when to stop, and when to throw things out. We should embrace simplicity and subtlety, and exploit the invisible.

Through timeless lessons and practical examples, learn how reduction and restraint can improve communication, emotion, and experience in our designs, with a philosophy applicable to every aspect of the systems we produce.

Transcript

1. Simon Collison Refresh Edinburgh | July 2012 A philosophy of restraint
3. Why call it a philosophy?
4. Design is messy
5. We design to communicate, and we seek emotive responses.
8. To delight someone is to give them a small lesson in seeing the world as something good. Frank Chimero, designer
10. A design aesthetic?
11. Minimal, lots of white space... and clean. Right?
12. www.foodsense.is
13. www.guardian.co.uk
14. www.webdesignerwall.com
15. Systems
16. We don’t design web pages. We design systems.
18. www.bbc.co.uk/gel
19. www.bbc.co.uk/gel
22. • Build a foundation for complexity • Devise a holistic approach for all projects • Devise a detailed project-specific system • Invest time in flexible pa ern libraries • Prepare for all eventualities
23. Embrace constraints
24. Having complete freedom is possibly the worst way to start any project.
26. Constraint is key to understanding complexity. Increase constraint and you create an ordered system; do that inappropriately and you create the conditions for catastrophic failure; remove constraint and the system is chaotic. Dave Snowden, The 5 C’s of Complexity
27. • Make sense of the constraints you’re given • Look for constraints you yourself can apply • Make constraints a feature or selling point
28. Exercising restraint
29. Responding to the problem in the simplest way possible.
33. • Immerse yourself in the subject • Design responses first, not a website • Discover what can be put to one side • Avoid misplaced vernacular and cliché
34. Simplicity and complexity
35. Less is more. Simple is be er. Right?
47. Unleash complexity in orchestrated phases, and increase power gradually.
48. • Good systems bear the weight of complexity • Embrace new methods for organising data • Find simplicity in the data flows • Don’t be afraid of obvious approaches • Release power gradually
49. Between the lines
50. Don’t underestimate humans. They can fill in the blanks.
51. Environment Experience Others Me Instruction Interaction
52. The Arrival, by Shaun Tan
55. • Anticipate mental models • Reveal only what is necessary • Let users find their own stories • Embrace serendipity • Trust users to make sense of things
56. Affordance & typography
57. An affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, that allows an individual to perform an action.
58. www.flightcardapp.com/
59. www.typekit.com
60. é é www.secondandpark.com/
61. • Understand the power of a ractiveness • Create obvious opportunities for interaction • Avoid unnecessary fakery and over-texturing • Don’t “iCal” the skeuomorphics • Use web type responsibly
62. Distraction
63. www.bbc.co.uk
64. www.icelandair.com/
66. www.jetblue.com/
74. • Use a clear hierarchy • Look for obvious clashes or fussy extras • Remove or lessen the impact of distractions • Avoid dozens of competing pa erns • Don’t disguise calls to action
75. Focus & context
76. Put the extraneous to one side. Focus on the task in hand, or add greater emphasis to stories.
80. www.thebolditalic.com/ www.gregorywood.co.uk /
84. • Design with context and tell the story • Allow users to focus • Split complex tasks into manageable chunks • Don’t compromise primary areas • Remove distractions at key times • Forms can always be simplified
85. Audit
86. A timely audit can prevent catastrophic failures, and shine new light on what you’ve learned.
91. • Add breathing space to your schedule • Make regular audits a part of your process • Be honest about shortcomings or failures • Never be afraid to rethink and rework
92. A final pause
93. Don’t launch. Instead, sit with your work, think about it. Sieve it down and give it space.
98. www.colly.com/
100. • Sit with your ‘finished’ work for some time • Stand back from it, find new perspectives • Seek valued opinion and feedback • Find things to throw away or reduce • Launch only when you are ready
101. This is my philosophy
102. delight / emotion / surprise systems / constraint / restraint simplicity / complexity / focus context / reduction
103. Thanks Simon Collison @colly