Simplicity Rules

If you want to make a simple website, or have a simple product, you need to become well-versed in letting the good in and keeping the bad out. You can’t do everything and you can’t have every feature someone could possibly want.

You are a curator, and Jason Fried has a great talk (15 minute video) about what a curator does:

“Think of yourself as a curator. You want to be a curator. You have to decide what comes in and what goes out. Curator’s job is to say no. Curator takes an entire universe of options to decide whether or not something makes it into a museum.”

The hard part, I think, is how to decide what is essential and what is not. When I need help with that, I turn to a couple of the concepts from Designing the Obvious:

• The Unnecessary Test
• 60 Second Deadlines

How do you decide what belongs in your museum?

There’s a hidden radio concept design that’s been making the rounds. My friend Nathan sent it my way and said it reminded him of the unopenable mint container.

The radio’s volume is controlled by pulling up the lid, showing more speaker. It is tuned by twisting the entire lid. Once you know this, it’s wonderfully simple. Do you think it would be obvious to the first time user? Does that matter?