Living with Complexity (MIT Press)

Complexity is like energy. It cannot be created or destroyed, only moved somewhere else. When a product or service becomes simpler for users, engineers and designers have to work harder. Norman writes, “With technology, simplifications at the level of usage invariably result in added complexity of the underlying mechanism. ”

The total complexity of a system is a constant. If you make a user’s interaction with a system simpler, the complexity behind the scenes increases.