Simplify
In the Steve Jobs book by Walter Isaacson, Jony Ive, the head of design for Apple shared his view of simplicity; “Simplicity isn’t just a visual style. It’s not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of complexity. To be truly simple you have to understand the essence of a product or service in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential.”
Most organizations fail to achieve simplicity. They fall in the temptation of including all the information we can possibly think of on our website or brochures, all the features we can add on our product, all the service choices we offer, etc.
It’s a lot easier to offer all the choices, to put in everything. Simplifying our message, thinking of the experience a client would go through when using your product or service, and making it simple and clear, is a lot harder. Actually doing the “figuring out” for our clients and offering them dead easy and clear paths to understand the information and get what they want is a lot harder.
Simple products, or websites or marketing materials are not less complete. When executed correctly, they are actually more intuitive and more effective. They provide just enough, or all the information needed, or all the features needed, no more, no less. As Einstein once said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
Get rid of things or that are not adding to the client experience and are not helping you engage with your clients. Too much information or choices only take away from your product or service and detract from the true essence and the value of your offer.
It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to focus on what really matters and only that. It takes discipline to not stray away from that focus and not fall in the temptation of adding more information just because we can.
As Leonardo Da Vinci once said and Apple adopted as one of their guides; “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. There is no elegant solution in clutter and superfluous information.
Simplify, simplify, simplify.
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