Simplicity of products and writing pieces

Simplicity is often quoted as the key factor of an elegant product (eg. Apple product “just works”). To achieve simplicity, one must subtract non-essential things from the product.

The same goes to communication artifacts (emails, messages, articles etc.) Whenever I read Axios articles (vs. NYT ones), I’m very imporesed by their balancing brevity and insightfulness. To borrow Tufte’s concept, Axios makes sure their ink-to-information ratio is very high (As opposed NYT, when I read their articles, I’m like who got all the time in the world to read all of these details lol).

Of course there’s time and place for products and writings that are rich in details and exuberant and excessive. A lot of people like those products with endless features (especially enterprise software buyers). But few people would think those are elegant.

The simplicity of elegant products or communication artifacts resonates with people because it leaves room for people to do their part (ie. add details based on their context and prior knowledge). It’s like poems, a lot of meanings and intent are compressed into the product or writing, and the users/readers again have to do their part to interpret, or let the intent emerge over time as they keep using the product or read the writing multiple times and reflect on it.

Creating these kind of high-intent products or writing pieces takes a long time and iterations of course. This post is certainly not it since it’s just a musing done as a part of my daily writing sprint (Took 30 minutes).

I hope I get to revisit this topic when I have more time and expand upon it.