Monday, September 8, 2008
The Laws of Simplicity--Mike Zellers (Business)
Jon Maeda's book The Laws of Simplicity reminds us that tools, whether technological or otherwise, are only good to the degree they help people do what they need to do. What good is something that has dozens of functions if it makes it difficult to do the one thing we need to? As technologists, we need to remember the focus ought to be not on the latest, greatest, feature-filled products, but on providing simple and elegant solutions to real peoples' problems. It is a short book and an easy read, but very thought provoking. It bears re-reading and has caused me to re-think much about technology and most everything I do.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Mike,
ReplyDeleteLike you, I have developed a genuine appreciation for authors such as Maeda who can write short books that are still large statements. These kinds of books also work well as complementary reads to main textbooks in courses we teach. I've begun a list--my "Under 200 List"--good books that are under 200 pages long. It's got about 15 titles right now and is growing.
Kevin Hoskinson