Simplifying anything (including design) with RESHOT method

We've heard this quite often during product or design discussion, "Make it simple." When they're asked, what it meant by "simple", the answers were varied. I consider myself lucky to discover Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda. The laws he provides, help me to have a structured approach when simplifying an experience (e.g user flow) and product (e.g User Interface). There are 10 laws of simplicity, but for me there are a few that I've been using quite often, and to make it easy for me to remember (and share with others as well), I created the mnemonic RESHOT: Refine the challenge, Remove, Shrink, Hide, Organize, and Time.

This post is intentionally made to explain the concept only, so it's short enough for anyone to read in < 5 minutes. I might create another post to show examples on applying this method.

Refine the challenge. This is not part of John Maeda's Laws of Simplicity. I've added this because I've found that when people start simplifying things, a few (if not many) don't have a clarity on why they do the simplification. For example in product design, we need to refine the challenge with a clear user problems/needs statement and the user values that we want to deliver. I use the How might we...? format (adopting this from Google Design Sprint) to define the challenge. For example, "How might we design an engaging and WOW tv drama landing page that helps users to access (almost) everything about the drama they love, be more entertained, and be more connected emotionally to our app?"

Remove. I love the Epicenter term from Jason Fried's book (Getting Real). Epicenter is a piece that any screen/page/experience can't live without. To achieve this, first law from John Maeda says "Reduce. The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction." While many of us tend to add things or features to existing product, this step is doing the opposite: remove things until the experience/design breaks. When you remove a thing, and the experience/design breaks, then it could be the epicenter. If you remove another thing, and the experience/design doesn't break, then it doesn't matter to the users--remove it. Then you continue removing things, until there's nothing else to remove.

Shrink. Once you're left with the essentials, it's time to weight the importance. Not every elements/features are created equal (in different context of the users). Shrink is not just about physical characteristic (e.g the size of something), but it's also about shrinking the attention. For each specific context of the users achieveing their goals, refine the importance of each element/feature, and adjust the design accordingly. This could be achieved through making the size smaller, adjusting the contrast or the information layout so the most important element stands out.

Hide. After you adjust the importance by shrinking certain elements, then it's time to hide things. Similar to how Swiss Army knife works: based on the context of the users, show only elements that help users to progress in achieving their specific goals. If they need extra features/information, it's there, but they're not shown by default.

Organize. You've removed things. You've adjusted the importance through shrinking. You've hidden things. Now it's time to organize things. Many interfaces are cluttered, because they're not well organized. Most users can't tell why certain interface feels cluttered. But we know: it's not well organized. There are three steps in organize: Group (Sort), Label, Integrate, and Prioritize. John Maeda calls this process SLIP. Let's say you're simplying a certain mobile app page, you start with listing down all content/features on that page. Then you find the natural grouping for all items, no need to think of what the grouping names are. After they're grouped, then you start thinking about the group names. The next step would be to Integrate. Some groups might be similar to another group, so merge them. Less group is better. Then the last step is to prioritize the groups. Not all groups are created equal. This will affect how you design the experience and present them to the users.

Time. This is the last one in RESHOT method. The law says, "Savings in time feel like simplicity." If a certain experience or process runs fast, users perceive our products/services as simple. Google, in their 10 things we know to be true, says "Fast is better than slow." It's a no brainer. We all hate everything that's slow. Always make everything runs fast, or if there's any constrainst that make it slow--make it feels like it's fast. Simple example would be an engaging and amusing copy and animation for a process that takes long. Make it feels fast, even if the reality was the opposite.

Some asks, is this method proven? There's a scientific journal released in November 2023, titled "Implementation of RESHOT Method to Create a Good User Experience in an Application" on JUITA (authored by Ridwan Ahmad Ma'arif).

Just like any other tool. Some might find it useful. Some might not. You can give it a (RE)SHOT first, and see how it goes. Let me know ??

Extra: for those who understand Bahasa Indonesia, I've two recorded LIVE session on applying RESHOT method to simplify an app:

• Redesign the homescreen of a food delivery app.
• Redesign MyPertamina app.