Writings Index

The value of omission

I may take advantage of doing what book editors do: deliberately choose what to leave out. To make an interface as easy to use as possible.

I'm sitting with a client a couple of months ago telling him that I'd like to delete some elements from the interface sketch I presented him a week before.

He disagrees with me. "Your job is to make things simple for the user without erasing features that are in the requirements". Which I guess is kind of a smart answer.

As I remember my reply has been about questioning the effectiveness of that requirements. I thought they were too specific and too marketing biased instead of user goal biased.

But aside from that, his point was good: The minimun amount of design to meet the requirements. This is a valuable goal for a designer.

Good design is as little design as possible — Rams

pic of dieter rams

Just enough is more — Glaser

pic of milton glaser

Last week I was reading an article about the value of omission in writing. It made me think about the value of a design process where at a certain stage I would INTENTIONALLY focus on leaving out erasing elements.

I guess I'll try that: becoming my own design editor.

© luca leone  —  dontpuzzle.me  —  @luc4leone