After dinner a few Thanksgivings ago we got bored. So we did what anyone would do: create a short spoof Civil War documentary with Legos. I should’ve posted this ages ago.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But are all pictures created equal? Wouldn’t a block-long mural be worth more than a toolbar icon? After extensive research I’ve found the answer to this critical question.

As you can see, pictures hit the 1000-word mark at just under 1 megapixel. It looks like a standard 16×16 pixel toolbar icon weighs in at an auspicious 42 words. (No data yet on how much badging is required at that size to achieve the full 42-word potential, though).

Stanford’s B.J. Fogg is redefining simplicity. Not in the marketing sense (The Widget 3000: Redefining Simplicity!); this is something useful. That simplicity equals good user experience is a common perception, and rather than challenge it he and his team are examining exactly what it means to be simple.

This comes at a terrific time. Products like the iPhone are popularizing usable, delightful experiences, and for many the takeaway message is make it spartan. Some point to the Google home page as the perfect user experience because it contains so little. But good design isn’t about simplicity (in the English sense); it’s about context. Fogg’s simplicity framework builds a new concept of simplicity that incorporates context and perception.

Simplicity is the “minimally satisfying solution at the lowest cost.”

It is a function of the user’s scarcest resource at the moment and thus depends on the person and the context. It involves the following factors:

• Time: How long will it take?
• Money: What will it cost?
• Physical Effort: How much must I expend?
• Brain Cycles: How much must I think?
• Social Deviance: How weird will it make me look?
• Novelty: How different is it from what I’m used to?

It may not be intended as a complete design framework, but it is surprisingly comprehensive. Some of my favorite principles fit right in (consistency with expectations, the least effective difference, and a clear visual hierarchy, for instance). It does not, however, include the traditional definition of simplicity anywhere. In other words, while a spartan UI will often be the outcome of applying this framework, it won’t be when the context demands otherwise.

Fogg’s framework does omit delight as a factor. A delightful experience can predispose the user to accepting greater complexity, increasing simplicity through aesthetics. That may mean it belongs in the framework; but it may also belong outside it as a modifier.

Will this framework revolutionize user experience design? Probably not. But it can help designers explain the complexities of simplicity to others, and gives us tool for framing our own decisions and trade-offs.

UIE’s Joshua Porter has a worthwhile article on simplicity, with a discussion of its relationship to purchasing decisions and links to additional opinion.

In the beginning, there was the answering machine. Its operation was simple. Some people wouldn’t leave messages, claiming they “don’t like to talk to machines,” but I never met anyone who couldn’t figure out what to do with one.
I took a lovely hand-me-down answering machine to college. It sported the fake wood grain that was popular in the 80’s, particularly on cars. It had one tape for incoming messages and one for the outgoing message, which was handy and resulted in better sound quality than the digital equivalents of the mid-90’s. One could even check messages on it remotely. Around 2000 I threw it out in favor of smaller and better things; I wish I hadn’t.
Answering machines worked nicely for about a quarter century. Then came digital voicemail systems, mobile phones, and Shirley (probably not her real name), the Helpful Voicemail Lady. I imagine you’ve met her:

“After the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up or press pound for more options. [inexplicably long pause] To leave a callback number, press 5.”

I have never dared to press 5.
It’s possible that someone did research and found a real need for these Instructions, but I’d be surprised. It seems more likely that someone stuck them in because she could - perhaps Shirley herself, though I suspect she’s innocent. I’m not averse to providing options, but when they serve only a fraction of telephone users (as I suspect they do) they should be provided in a manner that doesn’t get in everyone else’s way. (The need for them is what we often call an edge case. It’s easy but dangerous to get caught up in edge cases, because the last thing you want to do is design for them at the expense of the core use cases.)
Some carriers (Sprint, AT&T/Cingular, and possibly T-Mobile) allow you to bypass Shirley by pressing 1; Sprint goes so far as to tell you about it. In the past my outgoing message has begun, “Press 1 to skip to the beep.” Instructions for the Instructions.
The iPhone has already been lauded for bringing Apple simplicity to the mobile phone market, but I think of my outgoing voicemail message as AT&T’s territory. To my surprise and delight, here’s what happens after the outgoing message when you call an iPhone user:

[beep]

Thanks, Apple.