I have noticed this attitude in every company I have worked for. Whenever people are bragging about company products, the conversation is all about highlighting things like –
But I have never heard someone say something like – "Look how simple the design is!" or "Look how comprehensible it is that anybody can pick up where they have left and sustain this product. Imagine how much money it would save us in future"
As I see it, features can always be added to a product at any point; cosmetic appearance can always be polished. But simplicity and robustness of a system is not only hard to achieve but it is something which we cannot easily 'fix'.
Why can't we then 'show-off' or take pride in our simplicity? Does it not sound cool enough?
- how many features the product has
- how slick the user interface is
- how a certain 'latest' technology or paradigm was used
- how complex the system is or
- how smart the guy behind the design is(that he could make such a complicated system work). The more complex his design is, the smarter the designer must be.
But I have never heard someone say something like – "Look how simple the design is!" or "Look how comprehensible it is that anybody can pick up where they have left and sustain this product. Imagine how much money it would save us in future"
As I see it, features can always be added to a product at any point; cosmetic appearance can always be polished. But simplicity and robustness of a system is not only hard to achieve but it is something which we cannot easily 'fix'.
Why can't we then 'show-off' or take pride in our simplicity? Does it not sound cool enough?
