Design principle: Take things away until the design breaks, then put that last thing back in.
Interpretation
Simplify design by removing unnecessary elements until it is made functional.
This quote emphasizes the importance of minimalism in design. It suggests that by continuously stripping away excess components, designers can identify the essential elements that contribute to functionality and aesthetics, ensuring that only what truly matters stays in the final product.
In practice
In a design meeting, one might say, 'Remember Alan Cooper's principle: we should take things away until the design breaks.'
Run for your lives-the computers are invading. Awesomely powerful computers tackling ever more important tasks with awkward, old-fashioned interfaces. As these machines leak into every corner of our lives, they will annoy us, infuriate us, and even kill a few of us. In turn, we will be tempted to kill our computers, but we won't dare because we are already utterly, irreversibly dependent on these hopeful monsters that make modern life possible.
To our human minds, computers behave less like rocks and trees than they do like humans, so we unconsciously treat them like people.... In other words, humans have special instincts that tell them how to behave around other sentient beings, and as soon as any object exhibits sufficient cognitive function, those instincts kick in and we react as though we were interacting with another sentient human being.
If we want users to like our software we should design it to behave like a likeable person: respectful, generous and helpful.
No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it.
The role of designers and product makers is to really become much better editors. What kind of functionality is actually needed - and truly delightful - to consumers? Remove all the extraneous stuff.
Design cannot rescue failed content.
My goal is to omit everything superfluous so that the essential is shown to best possible advantage.
Throughout this book, we've been evangelizing simplicity, but ironically, the practice of simplicity is not simple. It is easy to build a bulky design by adding layer upon layer of navigation and features; it's much more difficult to create simple, graceful designs. Paring designs to essential elements while maintaining elegance and functionality requires courage and discipline.
Design needs to be plugged into human behavior. Design dissolves in behavior.
Good design should be available to everyone - and I do mean everyone. What I spent on the wheelchair I'm in could buy a small Mercedes. It's not only unfair to me; it's unfair to someone who's indigent but has the same needs. My goal is to make all objects affordable.
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