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The K.I.S.S. of Death for User Interface Design
By Micha | September 10, 2007
Probably everyone involved with user interface design has heard the K.I.S.S. maxim.
“Keep It Simple Stupid”
It always struck me as a bit rude to tack that last word on the end. But I suppose the acronym K.I.S. just doesn’t have the same impact. Nevertheless, the word seems to stick out like some loose barb, ready to slash at anyone who might disagree with those who sagely utter the phrase.
But I don’t actually find it a helpful phrase. Aside from its cliché usage, it doesn’t promote good communication amongst stakeholders. And, by masking assumptions, it allows widely diverse opinions to remain concealed beneath that one, almost useless, word – s i m p l e.
Motherhood. Apple Pie. Simple User Interfaces.
It’s a sad fact that I’ve sat through many meetings where otherwise intelligent executives will show an appalling lack of understanding of what is really required for an application to be successful from a usability standpoint. In my opinion, that always boils down to having clear answers to two key questions:
1. Who Is The User?
2. What Should They Be Able To Do With This Application?
Quite often these seemingly simple questions can be very difficult to answer. Why? Well I have my own quaint maxim to shed light on this. It goes like this:
The K.I.S.S. of Death for User Interface Design
Imagine people at a fairgound arcade all shooting for their respective bullseyes. All of them are doing precisely the same thing - staring dead ahead and focusing on the bullseye. But none of them are shooting for the same target. They are competing against each other. This is the last thing a software company needs on its own production team. It is extremely important to establish and articulate the common goal.
So when account executives, product managers and so on utter the K.I.S.S. phrase in my presence, I encourage them to worry less about designs not being ‘simple’ and to think more about identifying who their target users are. This forces them to really think about, and articulate, what market problems they are trying to address. This helps ensure that we are all shooting for the same thing.
If you can identify a target user group you stand a much better chance of making your application simple – for that group of users. Or put it the other way – if you have no concept of a target user, you will never produce a simple application.
It is a real joy to hear a senior executive or product management team speak precisely about who they are targeting as their prime users for a new product initiative. I know that a great design is just around the corner.
Topics: user interface design, design simplicity, effective communication, target users, target markets |