Simplicity gets its media moment

Nov 17, 2005

Long-time readers know that simplicity is no foreign topic in this space, as in Customer Experience in Four Steps, and a Whitepaper (July 27, 2005):

It seems, though, that simplicity is having a kind of "media moment" in the wider media and on the Web. Consider several examples:

The cover story of Fast Company this month is "The Beauty of Simplicity," featuring a quote from (past Gel speaker) Marissa Mayer: "Google is lke a Swiss Army knife, closed. It's simple, you can slip it in your pocket, but it's got the great doodad when you need it." Since the article isn't online (?!), here's my interview of Marissa from three years ago, which contains some similar thoughts.

Philips, also mentioned in that Fast Company article, has launched a major Simplicity initiative, including this whizzy Flash "showcase".

Citibank has launched a new "Simplicity" card, whose main benefits include the ability to reach a human operator by dialing 0 (Daily News article).

This New York Times article describes how hard it is to pick out gadgets as holiday presents (without mentioning Uncle Mark :)

(For what it's worth, this NYT story points readers to Funagain.com and Carcassonne... both Uncle Mark recommendations.)

This rather cluttered site contains some good tips on reducing clutter: http://www.december.com/simple/live/index.html

This column - Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic - compares the presentation styles of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and draws conclusions about the differences between Apple and Microsoft products. Well done analysis:

Perhaps my favorite link on the subject I've found lately is A Culture of Simplicity, describing Japanese "wabi-sabi".

Is it just me, or is "simplicity" the new "innovation"?

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