Less but better

Studying Industrial Design at Ohio State University, I was inspired and influenced by Dieter Rams. During his tenure as the leader of design at Braun, he wrote down the principals of good design as he saw them. One that stands out the most: "Good design is as little design as possible. Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design." His words often read like a mantra to young designers as they study their craft, and this particular idea has stayed with me as I've grown up in the industry. It seems that the faster the world moves, the stronger my pull to simplify becomes.

As technology advances and complexity of life increases, our challenge as designers is to simplify products and interfaces for others. Psychologist Barry Schwartz wrote about the paradox of choice and how more choice increases anxiety. Various studies have been conducted around the time it takes for a person to make a decision as a result of the possible number of choices, and the concept of choice overload suggests that when faced with too many options, consumers may simply forgo making any decision at all.

That decision fatigue extends beyond daily tasks and has a powerful impact in the world of retail and e-commerce. 39% of customers have admitted to leaving a company’s website after being overwhelmed by too many options, and research shows that simplifying a consumer’s decision-making process by just 20% can increase their chances of purchasing, re-purchasing, or recommending a brand’s product by 96%. In practice, an experiment in 2000 demonstrated that consumers who were offered fewer choices at a supermarket display table were 10 times more likely to actually purchase the product downstream.

The challenge is not only in streamlining decisions for consumers, but in helping them discover products or services they're not yet looking for that they need or want. In my team's work at Klaviyo, the products we build help our customers learn who their customers are to reduce friction in the purchase process.

To best deliver on that goal, we work to reduce complexity with three key steps: 1. Focus, 2. Reduce, and 3. Organize.

Focus:

The best products get the right things done elegantly. A clear “why” helps designers make magic. We force ourselves to ask multiple questions that focus us on what matters most.?

• Why are we doing this??
• What problem are we solving??
• What is the purpose??
• How can we focus on only things that matter to our users?

The why and focus on the core problems allow for us as designers to reimagine within boundaries set by user needs. It keeps the solution space uncomplicated from the get-go.

Reduce:

John Maeda talks about simplicity as subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful. Good design is about thoughtful reduction. It does not mean doing less for the sake of doing less. Reduction without intent just gives us more white space. Our goal is to make things easy, not remove the core utility that makes our product great.

Hence, we ask the questions:

• If we got rid of this feature, does the product still work??
• What do our users care about the most??
• What is the payoff?

These questions keep us honest and are often humbling for our team. When done right, these questions bring form and function together to create something elegant, useful, and desirable.

Organize:

People flourish in structured systems that mirror their cognitive map. A poorly thought-out purchasing experience leads to chaos in the mind of the consumer and ultimately impacts a company's ability to build the trust that's so needed to build a relationship. Reducing complexity for the consumer is hard. It takes experimentation, discipline, and patience. It's on us as designers to organize both in spatial and time axes, turning us into the keepers of our own modern-day Matrix. The questions below help us do this in an organized, scalable way:

• Is the next step obvious in the context of the user??
• Is there a simpler version???
• How can we make it appear more organized?

In my opinion, this deliberate and concentrated effort to focus, reduce, and organize leads to better products and interfaces. It is a win for both the creator and the consumer.?

How does your team turn complex problems in business and design into simple, elegant solutions? Where do you struggle?