Less > More

Take a look at this picture:?

I want to make this image symmetrical left to right, as if there were a mirror along the line from A to B. What should I do?

Or this slightly trickier one, which I want to make symmetrical top-to-bottom along the A/B line:

Again, what do I need to do to make it reflect??

I’ll come back to this later.?

I've been designing and building computer circuits since hand coding in base-8 was a thing: computer hardware in the ‘70s and early ‘80s was so limited compared to today it is hard to describe the difference and be believed. An upshot of this was that you couldn’t mess about if you had a complex task to execute. Not only is working in machine language difficult, you just couldn’t spare the computer horsepower, and you would spend a lot of time simplifying processes down to the minimum so that they would execute fast enough. The term ‘hacking’ has its roots in this – hackers were people spending time hacking away at computer code to refine it to its simplest and most efficient form [1].?

To emphasise the point, when I first used a Mac for word processing, a popular programme of the day was called?WriteNow; and this could do most of what you are used to in 2023, including different type faces, complex formatting the ability to paste in images, etc. In truth, the only feature I use day-to-day that I didn’t have in 1987 is ‘track changes’. The WriteNow app fitted into a single 1.44Mb floppy disk, and had room left over for stacks of documents too. The Microsoft Word app on my laptop is showing as 2.29Gb. Of course Word can do loads more, and there are improvements I value, but though it is better, it’s not 4400x better! [2]

This is why simplifying can be so valuable: but why do we as humans trend towards adding complexity? I have been reading an article [3]?in Nature magazine recently with some interesting findings. The authors conducted a number of experiments and showed that whenever people are trying to improve a situation, an object or any kind of thing, they tend to start with looking at what they can add to it; not what they could take away. This is an interesting observation, and also highlights an organisational hazard as projects and processes will tend to become more complex. It’s a good explanation for why bigger organisations tend to become less nimble and responsive.?

Why does this happen? Another article [4]?on the same topic talks about the ‘endowment effect’ (I am attached to my ideas) and ‘loss aversion’ (it’s hard to let go of ideas), and of course if a team has spent time and effort into something it can be psychologically costly to stop. Additive solutions avoid conflicts with the people who are affected.?

What can we learn from this?

Creativity doesn’t have to be solely about making new things; it can also be about how to achieve objectives in new, simpler ways. Doing less in order to do more. We need to be disciplined about remembering that every time you add a new feature, you are carrying the cost of the existing features as well as the cost of the new one. We all need to look at this in our own work as individuals, as well as at organisational levels – and bear in mind that though subtractive solutions are less intuitive, it is absolutely worth the extra effort to look for them.?

Oh, and the puzzle at the top of the blog? In the first image the thing to do is delete the vertical line in the top left; in the second you could delete the ‘L’ in the top right. In the Nature article describing these experiments, 89% of people fix the symmetry by adding extra coloured squares.?

[1]?If you’re interested in those prehistoric times, I can recommend the book “Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution” by Stephen Levy, which does a great job of bringing that late ‘50s to ‘60s era of computing to life.?

[2]?Of course this is about more than just extra features, it also says a lot about how contemporary software is written, but I’ll save that for another blog

[3]?Adams GS, Converse BA, Hales AH, Klotz LE. People systematically overlook subtractive changes. Nature. 2021 Apr;592(7853):258–61?

[4]?Meyvis T, Yoon H. Adding is favoured over subtracting in problem solving. Nature. 2021 Apr;592(7853):189–90.?