Some (design) challenges are complex by nature.

“A complex system consists of numerous interacting agents and the interactions are key for the complexity, yielding unpredictable emergent behaviors and systems that are changing over time. Complex systems are always non-linear, which means that only because A resulted in B once it won’t necessarily do so the next time A happens. There’re no well-defined problems so solve, rather a problem space to act in, and there’s no such thing as right or wrong, only better or worse.”

(Anna Viggedal ~ Ericsson UX Lab blog)

Complexity increases when objects and their relations are added all the time and at multiple levels of abstraction.

“The story of usability is a perverse journey from simplicity to complexity. That’s right, from simplicity to complexity – not the other way around. (…) Usability is a messy, ill-defined, and downright confusing concept.”

(Mads Soegaard ~ Smashing Magazine) ~ courtesy of janjursa

“There is increasing interest in the simplification of information technology (IT). The IT industry is recognizing the need to simplify software technology as businesses express their increased interest in governing the return on their IT investments. Two goals are surfacing as explicit mandates to which all software vendors are responding: (1) lowering the skills required of software users and (2) increasing their productivity. Although this simplification mandate is most essential to small- and medium-sized businesses, where people with high-end technical skills may not be affordable, an awareness of the damage complexity inflicts on users is spreading to the enterprise market as well. Commoditization pressures make it necessary for the IT industry to reduce skills requirements as well as service and maintenance costs.” (Lucinio Santos – UXmatters)

“The MIT Media Lab’s John Maeda lives at the intersection of technology and art — a place that can get very complicated. Here, he talks about paring down to basics, and how he creates clean, elegant art, websites and web tools. In his book Laws of Simplicity, he offers 10 rules and 3 keys for simple living and working — but in this talk, he boils it down to one simply delightful way to be.” (TED: Ideas worth spreading) – courtesy of digitalwebmagazine

“(…) apparently unrelated networks behave in similar ways and have similar structures – they’re the result of similar laws. This knowledge allows us to have common thinking about networks. But many questions remain. How are the networks used? What are the dynamics of how they’re being used at the smallest scale?” (Albert-László Barabási – ASIS&T Bulletin Feb/Mar 2007)

“Achieving simplicity is not that simple when you are dealing with complex modern device design. Rob Tannen mused on lazy shortcuts, artificial constraints and Maeda’s crusade on the complex.” (Rob Tannen – Boxes and Arrows)

“Devotees of simplicity will bring up 37signals and the Apple iPod as anecdotal proof that Simple Sells. I would argue that in both these cases, success is a result of a combination of things: building an audience, evangelism, clean and spare design, emotional appeal, aesthetics, fast response time, direct and instant user feedback, program models which correspond to the user model resulting in high usability, and putting the user in control, all of which are features of one sort, in the sense that they are benefits that customers like and pay for, but none of which can really be described as ‘simplicity’.” (Joel Spolsky)

“Though many business strategies and publications continue to trumpet the power of simplicity in the design of digital products, for lots of companies and product teams, simplicity doesn’t come easy.” (Luke Wroblewski – UXmatters)

“John Maeda’s book, The Laws of Simplicity, is a good quick read. I love the clear presentation of the ideas in the book and the fact that the author imposed a limit of 100 pages for himself, an idea consistent with his Third Law: ‘Savings in time feels like simplicity’. This book is not the final word on the topic of, of course, and in fact more is to come soon on the topic by MIT press.” (Garr Reynolds – Presentation Zen)

“(..) we are learning that simplicity equals sanity. We’re rebelling against technology that’s too complicated, DVD players with too many menus, and software accompanied by 75-megabyte ‘Read Me’ manuals. The iPod’s clean gadgetry has made simplicity hip. But sometimes we find ourselves caught up.” (John Maeda)