Simplicity Is Definitely Complicated
“Simplicty.” It’s a word we hear often, but it’s meaning is fleeting to most.
This post explores “simplicty” in phones. We have rotary phones that are simple by limiting the uses it has (Limited Simplicity). We have business style phones with lots of buttons and shortcuts that add simplicity for power users (Power User Simplicity). And we have what he calls “elegant design” where the iPhone’s use cases are maximized by using sets of smaller tools to fulfill more use cases (Elegant Simplicty).
The thing about this description of “simplicity” is that it doesn’t mean the same to different people. Personally, I see the iPhone as Limited simplicity. My parents see it with Elegant simplicity or Power User simplicity. And my grandparents don’t think it’s simple at all. In fact, my grandparents are scared to touch it at all. Business owners and employees will find the business style phone with it’s 100 buttons elegantly simple because of how they use it, nobody else will feel the same.
Rarely will simplicity take upon the same meaning to everyone, so simplicity is even more complex than that.
The most important experience you can do is find the target market that you want to achieve elegant simplicity with. These are the customers to focus on and you want to “wow” them. Don’t think you need to be a catch all, be specific.