Simplicity is beautiful.
The idea of a concept distilled into a single idea or single ideas is freeing. It allows people to see something for what it is immediately. Bonus points if it is explainable to someone in laymen terms. If I can take an idea and tell it to a child or someone in a language I barely know, it lets me know that I have really distilled the idea down to a really simple way.
Simplicity is scary.
If there is anything wrong with an idea, simplicity shows it. There is no hiding. When I do this, it could look wrong, and it’s quickly apparent. My ego is on the line with a simple idea. People will already be cautious of something that has very little in the way of documentation or explanation. As counter intuitive as the idea of simplicity is, people feel a lot more comfortable with hearing things with a lot of words. Noise makes people comfortable because it gives plenty of wiggle room. If this goes wrong, there is something in that mess I said that will solve all of this.
Both of these ideas, that simplicity is scary and beautiful, have been true in my experience. I lean towards the first as a default. If I see something that is simple and direct, I think of someone who has done some work on getting rid of noise. I also acknowledge that where I see things as simple and clean, some people see things as unfinished.
One of my goals in life is to bring people from that unfinished side over to the side of simplicity. I recognize that you cannot shut the other side out – they often exist as bosses or other people we have to answer to. When someone learns how to display beauty in its true form, they become indispensable to any rational decision maker and a great decision maker themselves. That is very simple to me.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 