I gave a talk at Sun Labs where I encountered a special light switch in one of their conference rooms. At first I thought it was some kind of silly “engineer” joke. But the light switch functions as stated for real. Does it win the award for the most confusing light switch? I bet there are other ones out there that are equally complex to use.
I enjoyed this article in my copy of TIME magazine this week entitled “The Science of Appetite” by Jeffrey Kluger.
The pullout quote helps to explain why we humans always crave more. We’re biologically programmed to prepare for the “just in case” scenario as part of our instinct to survive. So even when we buy a new device, we think to ourselves, “I don’t really need that, but maybe I just might.” Only those that are truly self-assured can begin to consciously choose the constraints of simplicity over the delicious rapture of complexity.
Thinking of Maslow’s pyramid of needs, it may be that if you’re at the bottom of the pyramid in true survival mode, you desire complexity; on the other hand if you are sated in most ways, you desire simplicity. Seems to make sense. Moving up in the world, you desire more; when you’ve already made it to the top you are obesely full and want to get by with less through reduce-ing.
More = Survival; Less = Survivable.
Thinking about Google reminded me of when I visited their HQ a few months back. I was greeted with the magic NDA machine that seemed friendly and all, until I tried to sign my name digitally. The computer pen’s response was terribly off and translated any legible scribble of mine into a vaguely correlated scrawl. I wondered about the legalities of a digital signature when the result bears no resemblance to the original input. Complex.
Luis Blackaller and Brent Fitzgerald have released a new Mac OS X Dashboard Widget to play with their “Tiny Icon Factory.” There’s a lot of expressive space in the tiny confines of a 13 by 13 pixel grid. It can really be quiet addictive. Be careful.
I wish that one of the Laws of Simplicity were to exercise more instead of less. But who needs laws when you have great services on the Web like Tak Okamoto’s new RunLog! Yes there are many such services on the Web, but the cool thing about Tak’s system is that it uses OpenID. The concept behind OpenID is important: one login for all the things you like to do on the Web. That’s right–no more confusion about your various logins/passwords and so forth. A lot of it of course inevitably depends upon trust, but OpenID is actually well thought out in this area.
Combine Tak’s RunLog with the Map My Run service to measure your route, and you’re well on your way to a better New Year of 2007. Run!
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