The Laws of Simplicity

Maeda's ten compact laws for balancing simplicity and complexity across business, technology and design. A meditation that pairs naturally with the SDF's complicated-versus-complex distinction — knowing when to reduce, and when not to. First published in 2006 by MIT Press and later reissued, Maeda's book sets out ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology and design, opening with 'Reduce' as the simplest way to make something better without necessarily adding to it. Maeda, a professor at MIT's Media Lab, uses the book to address what he calls the simplicity paradox: the wish for something simple to use that still does everything one might ever want. The whole argument runs to roughly a hundred pages, built around the ten laws and three further keys.