The second half was not as interesting as the first half. As the author suggested, Law 1-3 were the most thought out, and the remaining ones were works in progress. It seemed a bit pompous overall to pass these things off as “laws”.
To varying degrees his Laws were not coming from the same perspective. Law’s 1-4 were phrased in a “If you do Law X, the thing will feel simple” where the other laws were more secondary in nature ie “A thing that feels simple will have Law x attributes”. Save for the first 3, they were attributes that surrounded simple things – not laws that governed the level of simplicity a thing might have. Additionally, he seemed to be flipping back and forth between why a simple thing may be loved (ie, why are there iPod fans) and what actually made it simple (ie, fewer buttons and a good navigation system). As a side note, I can’t stand acronyms which he used over and over.
The book reminded me of two quotes I’ve shared before:
- “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- “Confusion and clutter are failures of design, not attributes of information.” – Edward R Tufte
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