simplicity

One of the most intelligent case studies in design is the Chinese tea cup. They’re made without handles simply because if it’s too hot to touch, it’s too hot to drink.

Humans naturally want to add more. Add a cardboard sleeve, add a warning on the outside of the cup, add a handle. The result of all these things never cools down the actual contents.

A great story about simplicity from Akio Morita, the instigator of the Walkman project at Sony:

Engineers had the technology to add the recording function to the Walkman and it would’ve cost only 50 cents to a dollar per unit. Morita decided against it. He wanted the device to have one function, which it performs very well. Walkman should only play

The opportunity lost by increasing the amount of blank space is gained back with enhanced attention on what remains. More white space means that less information is presented. In turn, proportionately more attention shall be paid to that which is made less available. When there is less, we appreciate everything much more.

Smaller and simpler software with one core feature always makes me more focused. Every time I want to write something I open a simple text editor instead of something more complex like Notion or Google Docs. Feature bloat creates so much distraction and friction for me, to the point where I just sit and stare at the screen instead of actually doing