LAWS of simplicity

60-SECOND BOOK BRIEFS

BY JOHN MAEDA

John Maeda - who has held posts as the President at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, head of the MIT Media Lab, and current partner at legendary Silicon Valley venture capital firm KPCB - wrote the book The Laws Of Simplicity to help us understand how to make the complex understandable. Here are the laws:

Law 1: ReduceThe simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.

Law 2: Organize

Organization makes a system of many appear fewer

Law 3: Time

Savings in time feel like simplicity.

Law 4: Learn

Knowledge makes everything simpler.

Law 5: DifferencesSimplicity and complexity need each other.

Law 6: Context

What lies in the periphery of simplicity

is definitely no peripheral.

More emotions are better than less.

Law 7:

Emotion

Law 8: Trust

In simplicity we trust.

Law 9: FailureSome things can never

be made simple.

Law 10: The One

Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.

Master these principles, and you’ll be on your way to designing something that people love and find meaning with.

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