KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid

Posted by adriana on
Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 12:21 pm

NY Times David Pogue’s review of the Flip continues to attract a lot of reaction. See the follow up post ‘Why There Aren’t more Flips“. Funny how this little thing can create some much reaction. It’s premise is SIMPLICITY (even though sometimes it fails to deliver on that). This principle simplicity seems to the key to success when it come to technology and it’s most iconic example: the iPod.

In spite of what some of Pogue’s readers commented, the principles of simplicity are all around us and it’s an important model to study and understand. It can be a core guide us through creation, from a pitch, to a script, or an application. For example, check out 37 signals, a company purely based on the idea of simplicity by developing discrete task applications. They have produced incredible popular and simple applications like basecamp (Wired has featured the company, the owners and their products several times).

Furthermore, the immediate benefit of simplicity is SPEED, which in today’s world seems to be the winning strategy. Kirk and John produced 5 videos in 10 days using the Flip. They shot on the road, edited in the back of the car, and published whenever they found a wifi spot. All this possible because they had a little, simple, push-the-button camera.