The quest for simplicity

Complexity is not the opposite of simplicity

Most of the times we think as complexity as something bad. And I tended to fall in that pitfall myself. Until one day when I was having a conversation with a product manager, and he was showing me how the flight schedule of Schipol Airport in Amsterdam was organised. He was showing me all the tables and data, and how the system worked. And he understood it perfectly, but for me, it looked like a basic and weird excel sheet. Frankly, I couldn’t understand a cent of what he was seeing in it. But then I realised that for him, that mess, that complexity is simplicity.

If you give it a proper thought you will realise that simplicity is only a matter of perception and perspective. It’s not only on a physical but rather more on a brain level. How you feel and how you see it. It has almost nothing to do with the physical form.

For example, if you are able to create an image, a feeling of simplicity, only by changing the copy and without making any changes to the core, then you succeeded in creating a great product.

Complexity is often thought to have a negative…