Most agree good design is less; they part over what the remainder is for.
Our reading of what a group of claims have in common, one level above a korrent: a korrent is our reading of what somebody said, a view is our reading of what several korrents share. The claims are printed under it, so the sentence can be checked against them.
Nobody is filed under a view — claims are. A person is named here because a dated claim of theirs sits under it, and somebody whose claims sit under two views appears under both.
Guillermo RauchDavid Heinemeier HanssonJulie ZhuoCraig ModSebastiaan de WithFrank ChimeroDieter RamsJohn MaedaPaul Graham
Mitchell HashimotoDavid Heinemeier HanssonJason FriedJulie ZhuoAmelia WattenbergerRyan SingerSebastiaan de WithDon NormanDieter RamsPaul Graham
Jakob NielsenFrank ChimeroDerek SiversDieter RamsEdward TuftePaul Graham
Mitchell HashimotoDavid Heinemeier HanssonJason FriedEmil KowalskiJulie ZhuoCraig ModDieter RamsJohn Maeda
Julie ZhuoDon NormanFrank ChimeroJared SpoolEdward TuftePaul Graham
A viewour reading
Mental modelEverything decays without maintenance
Their wordsAs software evolves, it tends to get slower, more bloated, buggier, and bigger.
Mental modelLess, but better
Their wordsSo, this is why I'm quite skeptical about all this new AI acceleration we're having is even us, I think it's quite likely that we could use it wrong to build too much software, to get too far away from less software, learnable software. It still has to fit in the mind of a human.
Mental modelLess, but better
Their wordsBetter design does not mean more design. Often, the most obvious designs are invisible.
Mental modelLess, but better
Their wordsI love software that does this: Software that unbloats over time. This should be the goal of all software. The longer it’s around, the more elegant it should become. Smooth over like a river stone.
Mental modelLess, but better
Their wordsThe most important thing you can do as a designer to make great new technology usable is to simplify.
Mental modelsLess, but better, Conservation of complexity
Their wordsSo, I thought it would be useful to remind everyone that the easiest and cheapest strategy for dealing with complexity is not to invent something to manage it, but to avoid the complexity altogether with a more clever plan.
Mental modelLess, but better
Their wordsDirectness is best in my experience, so a great photo, memorable illustration, or pitch-perfect sentence does most of the work. Beyond that, fancy implementation has never moved the needle much for my clients.
Mental modelLess, but better
Their wordsLess, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials.
Mental modelCraft in the details
Their wordsNothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the user.
Mental modelLess, but better
Their wordsThe simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction. When in doubt, just remove. But be careful of what you remove.
Mental modelLess, but better
Their wordsSimplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.
Mental modelLess, but better
Their wordsWhen you're forced to be simple, you're forced to face the real problem. When you can't deliver ornament, you have to deliver substance.
A viewour reading
Their wordsI can't tell you the number of people over my career that have said "I tried learning tmux" First problem: the fact you have to "learn it" at all. The world's best multiplexer is the one you don't have to learn. It just works.
Filed here becauseFiled under this view as its counter: it says a couple of days of learning is a fair price, which the claim above it calls the first design failure.
Their wordsThis is a computer system made for pros, and I mean that in the sense of professional computer lovers. People who are willing to invest time and energy into learning how their system works, and reap the benefits that come from that investment.
Mental modelAffordances and signifiers
Their wordsBig flat toggle buttons under satisfying tension. Clear affordances. You push them down, not in. One click catches, one doesn't. You can use them with bare hands, oven mitts, fingers coated in slippery whatever. Doesn't matter. Plenty of surface area. Outstanding design. It's all been downhill from there.
Mental modelsDesign is how it works, Conventions (Jakob's law)
Their wordsSometimes designers will go to great lengths to make a user interface novel, or minimal, or simple. This is the wrong goal. Novelty, minimalism or simplicity are good heuristics for obviousness, but do not mistake the means for the end.
Mental modelConventions (Jakob's law)
Their wordsObviousness comes from conforming to people’s existing mental models. Don’t waste time reinventing common UI patterns or paradigms unless they are at least 2x better, or you have some critical brand reason to do so.
Mental modelAffordances and signifiers
Their wordsGood tools make it clear how they should be used. And more importantly, how they should not be used.
Mental modelAffordances and signifiers
Their wordsWe consider interface copy to be an affordance, too. Reading it is an act that gives the user information for subsequent actions.
Mental modelConventions (Jakob's law)
Their wordsBut given the already complicated premise of long exposure photography, the best possible thing we could do — and as a designer this is hard to admit — was to stick to a fairly conventional design and let the actual features surprise and delight.
Mental modelDesign is how it works
Their wordsWhen you come across an article set in a superb typeface for reading, some excellent airport signage or a well designed door handle, you don’t think about it or even notice it. If anything you might just notice being happier, or simply not frustrated. That’s how you know a design is great: it disappears.
Mental modelAffordances and signifiers
Their wordsAffordances control what actions are possible. For designers, signifiers are far more important. Signifiers are how communication takes place, how one signals the appropriate controls and operations.
Mental modelDesign is how it works
Their wordsProducts fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.
Mental modelConservation of complexity
Their wordsIt clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.
Their wordsGood design looks easy. Like great athletes, great designers make it look easy. Mostly this is an illusion. The easy, conversational tone of good writing comes only on the eighth rewrite.
A viewour reading
Mental modelIncentives
Filed here becauseNot a claim about what good design is but about what design gets paid for; filed here because it is the sharpest statement on this page of what an honest design is up against.
Their wordsThe reason companies pay for design is to get customers to buy more and users to look at more advertisements.
Their wordsA well-made design system created for the right reasons is reparative. One created for the wrong reasons becomes a weapon for displacement. Tools are always beholden to values.
Their wordsEvery business wants to get you addicted to their infinite updates, pings, chats, messages, and news. But if what you want out of life is to create, then those are your obstacles.
Mental modelTrade-offs
Their wordsTo create convenience—particularly the automated convenience technology trades in—someone else must make our choices for us. In other words: the less you have to do, the less say you have.
Their wordsIt does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.
Their wordsIt avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.
Their wordsThe standard PowerPoint presentation elevates format over content, betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.
Mental modelDesign is how it works
Their wordsIf your numbers are boring, then you've got the wrong numbers. If your words or images are not on point, making them dance in color won't make them relevant. Audience boredom is usually a content failure, not a decoration failure.
Their wordsChartjunk is a clear sign of statistical stupidity. Poking a finger into the eye of thought, these data graphics would turn into a nasty travesty if used for a serious purpose, such as helping cancer patients assess their survival chances.
Their wordsif something is ugly, it can't be the best solution. There must be a better one, and eventually someone will discover it.
A viewour reading
Their wordsI'm so incredibly tired of seeing low-effort AI-designed web pages. I basically bounce off any new product immediately when I see it (never get a chance to judge the product itself). Lots of thin lines, glowy styles, inconsistent fonts, lots of monospace.
Their wordsI mean, I think aesthetics is truth. When something is beautiful, it's likely to be correct. I think this is true in mathematics. This is true in physics. This is true in a lot of different domains that when you arrive at something that has the correct aesthetic quality.
Mental modelDesign is how it works
Their wordsIn some cases, design is what something looks like. In other cases, design is how something works. But the most interesting designs to me are when design changes your behavior. Even the smallest details can change how someone interacts with something.
Mental modelCraft in the details
Their wordsEasing is the most important part of any animation. It can make a bad animation feel great and a great animation feel bad. That’s why you have to know which easing to choose in a specific situation.
Mental modelValue moves to what stays scarce
Their wordsEveryone’s software is good enough these days. The barriers to entry are low. To stand out, you need to make your product feel great. One way of doing that is through animations.
Mental modelDesign is how it works
Their wordsDo not judge a product’s beauty by its aesthetics; judge it by how it made you feel.
Mental modelDesign is how it works
Their wordsDesign is not the way it looks, or beautiful colors and animations. It's not the brand or the logo. It is how the product works. Designing is the the process of exploring and arriving at a solution. I believe all builders are designers.
Mental modelSpeed is a feature
Their wordsSpeed in software is probably the most valuable, least valued asset. To me, speedy software is the difference between an application smoothly integrating into your life, and one called upon with great reluctance.
Mental modelSpeed is a feature
Their wordsFast software is not always good software, but slow software is rarely able to rise to greatness. Fast software gives the user a chance to “meld” with its toolset. That is, not break flow.
Mental modelSpeed is a feature
Their wordsSpeed and reliability are often intuited hand-in-hand. Speed can be a good proxy for general engineering quality. If an application slows down on simple tasks, then it can mean the engineers aren’t obsessive detail sticklers.
Mental modelSpeed is a feature
Their wordsExcellent touch interfaces feel tactile. The best “touch interfaces,” in my opinion, are actual buttons, things with physicality, haptics. But on a screen, to feel tactile is to move without latency.
Mental modelDesign is how it works
Their wordsThe aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.
Mental modelSpeed is a feature
Their wordsWhen forced to wait, life seems unnecessarily complex. Savings in time feel like simplicity. And we are thankfully loyal when it happens, which is rare.
Their wordsMore emotions are better than less. When emotions are considered above everything else, don’t be afraid to add more ornament or layers of meaning.
A viewour reading
Their wordsOkay design improves what is put in front of it. Excellent design changes what is possible.
Mental modelYou are not the user
Their wordsIf you cannot get a group of people for whom your product is designed for to generally agree that your design is good, it’s not good.
Mental modelsDesign is how it works, You are not the user
Their wordsHuman error is blamed for over 90 percent of industrial and automobile accidents. It is the leading cause of aviation accidents, and medical error is reported to be the third-largest cause of death in the entire United States. Horrifying? Yes, but why do we label it “human error”? It is design error.
Filed here becauseThe one claim on this page that says simplicity is the wrong goal; filed here because what it asks for instead, clarity, is a test of whether the right problem got solved.
Their wordsClearly, convergence and simplicity make for poor goals. Instead, we must aim for clarity. You can’t contain or reduce the torrent of technology, but you can channel it in a positive direction through proper framing and clear articulation.
Their wordsOver the last year, we’ve started explaining design as “the rendering of intent.” The designer imagines an outcome and puts forth activities to make that outcome real.
Their wordsVisual reasoning usually works more effectively when relevant information is shown side by side. Often, the more intense the detail, the greater the clarity and understanding.
Mental modelCraft in the details
Their wordsGreat software, likewise, requires a fanatical devotion to beauty. If you look inside good software, you find that parts no one is ever supposed to see are beautiful too.
Their wordsYou need a good sense of design to judge good design. And there is no correlation, except possibly a negative one, between people's ability to recognize good design and their confidence that they can.
Their wordsSaying that taste is just personal preference is a good way to prevent disputes. The trouble is, it's not true. You feel this when you start to design things.
Their wordsGood design solves the right problem. The typical stove has four burners arranged in a square, and a dial to control each. How do you arrange the dials? The simplest answer is to put them in a row. But this is a simple answer to the wrong question.
Their wordsIllegibility comes from complexity without clarity. I believe that the legibility of the source is one of the most important properties of the web. It’s the main thing that keeps the door open to independent, unmediated contributions to the network.
Their wordsI believe every material has a grain, including the web. But this assumption flies in the face of our expectations for technology. Too often, the internet is cast as a wide-open, infinitely malleable material.
Their wordsTechnology only adds more—it is never this or that; it is always this and that.
Asserted relations, each with the curator’s reason — never computed, because similarity cannot tell agreement from opposition.
These pull against each other
Kowalski says software is all good enough now, so standing out means feeling great, and animation is one route to that. Tufte says boredom is a content failure and not a decoration failure — if the numbers are boring, you have the wrong numbers. One is arguing that the substance is settled and the surface decides; the other that blaming the surface is how people avoid noticing they have nothing to say.
These pull against each other
De With says you know a design is great when it disappears — a good typeface or door handle is never noticed, only the absence of frustration. Kowalski says everyone software is good enough now, so a product has to FEEL great to stand out, and animation is one way there. A thing designed to be felt is a thing designed to be noticed.
These pull against each other
Maeda holds both laws and they pull opposite ways: when in doubt remove, and when emotion comes first do not be afraid to add ornament or layers of meaning. Which one is in force is the whole judgement, and the pair is the reason simplicity is not a rule you can follow.
These pull against each other
Zhuo says better design does not mean more design and that the most obvious designs are often invisible. Maeda says more emotions are better than fewer and that ornament is allowed when emotion comes first. Invisible and emotional are not opposites, and every specific decision has to pick one of them.
Matched by wording, not yet read into a view. The archive grows on its own, so this is where new claims wait for somebody to read them.
The full chronology, with every quote: design as a timeline · person by person, side by side · all topics · Something wrong? Tell us