Simple and Usable Web, Mobile, and Interaction Design

Aiming for extreme targets, even ones you can’t quite reach, will help you keep your product simple.

I would always use as few chunks as feels simple to your mainstream user—fewer chunks mean fewer choices and less load on the user.

So the question is never, “Why should we get rid of it?” It is always, “Why should we keep it?”

While you’re waiting for the world to change, however, there are other ways of simplifying that are less radical, but quicker to implement.

hiding has a big advantage over organizing: users aren’t distracted by unwanted details.

You click once to select the basic tool, or click and hold to see the advanced options. What’s nice about this approach is that it is an invitation to explore, rather than a label that attempts to explain what comes next.

Instead of merging the components, we needed to break them into smaller chunks so that the managers could complete them in the short bursts of time they had.

Hide one-time settings and options. • Hide precision controls, but let expert users choose to keep them revealed. • Don’t force or expect mainstreamers to customize, but offer this option for experts. • Hide elegantly; that is, hide completely and reveal just in time.

Staged disclosure