Simple design for a complicated world
How can technology be shaped to enhance our lives rather than complicating them? Design is increasingly becoming the decisive interface mediating between the human and the technological, and the competition between new technologies is increasingly decided by the user-friendliness of their products. One of the prime tasks of modern design is to translate the frontiers of technical innovation into meaningful applications and to make the use of these as simple and clear as possible.
Universities teach and research, designers shape and simplify – at the university too. Design is concerned with practice, and may for that reason seem less academic than other disciplines. Modern design research is focused on the intelligibility and impact of artifacts. “Human beings are slow,” the philosopher Odo Marquard has observed, “but the modern world is fast. To reject the modern world is to forego essential means of survival. To reject slowness is to forego the human itself.”
The insight pinpoints one of the key tasks of contemporary design: to make the interaction with technology and the progress associated with it as simple, intelligible and meaningful as possible for all of us. For technical devices are often overly complicated and, instead of facilitating life, demand too much of their users.
In a society subject to accelerating development, in which it seems that everything will soon be available virtually at any place or time, the shaping and control of modern technology is of paramount importance. Design impacts the perception of technology, above all with respect to its accessibility, and therefore also to the semiotic and symbolic values connected with its products. And this is of ever-increasing importance in our information-based world.
The spheres of work still untouched by digital communications technology are dwindling daily. Good, intelligible design reduces fear of technical systems and devices and prevents the exclusion of those who are not natural users of technology.
Fig. 1: Apple design inspired
by Braun. Dieter Rams’ 1958
pocket radio (Braun T3) inspired
Apple’s iPod.
The resulting reduction in operating complexity, along with parallel improvements in technology and a veritable explosion in the spectrum of applications available, have boosted the acceptance of new technical devices. According to the Federal Statistics Office of Germany, 98% of 16-24 year-olds now surf on the Internet, and the participation of older groups is growing continuously (indeed their growth rate is the highest of all), with 43% of over 65s now online. At the same time the Internet is becoming more mobile, with 16% of users in 2010 logging in via mobile telephony, 78% more than in the previous year.
The new vistas opened by recent technological development will, however, only be accessible to the mass of users when devices and their interlinked systems can really be operated intuitively. The commercial success of technological innovation is directly connected with its simplicity for the everyday user, and hence with the quality of its design: if the user interface is overly complex, the user group will automatically remain small.
Only a few years ago complex codes had still to be learned in order to gain access to the digital world. This has changed, the intuitive usability of modern smartphones and tablet computers has radically simplified access and opened a host of new user groups to the possibilities of the Internet. Good, intelligible design is a proven success factor: grandmother now chats with her grandchildren via Face Time.
There is no shortage of evidence, both positive and negative, for the dependence of economic success on quality of design. Many devices, whether music players, cell phones or tablet computers, failed in the past to gain a real foothold in the market, often because of their difficult or fussy user interface. This all changed with Apple.
Under the leadership of Steve Jobs, already a legend in his own lifetime, the Californian company made simplicity of use and quality of design its supreme commandment – and the digital world opened for the hordes of technically unversed humanity. The commercial implications of the design factor dawned only slowly on the competition, which still thought primarily in terms of faster processors and bigger memory. Apple’s brand strategy, focused on user appeal and aesthetics, meanwhile established it as the world’s number one enterprise, with a share value that has increased sixtyfold since 2002. Apple leads the market in mobile computers of all types, with iPad sales in the fourth quarter of 2011 alone predicted to exceed 13 million units.
A glance at the history of Germany’s electrical goods manufacturer Braun shows, however, that the ideals of clarity and simplicity are far older than Apple. Inspired by the design precepts of the Bauhaus and developed in collaboration with members of the radical Ulm School of Design, Braun’s products of the mid 1950s demonstrated unusually simple modern lines and functions that broke with the typically decorative forms of contemporary radios and the technically challenging aspect of kitchen appliances. For decades Braun maintained its pioneering stance and concomitant willingness to accept commercial risks with a consistent design that became a recognizable brand feature and inspired among others Apple’s chief designer, Jonathan Ive.
The ‘less is more’ principle introduced by Dieter Rams – who as Braun’s long-serving design head influenced the high quality design of Braun products right into the 1990s – is as relevant today as it was then, indeed the need for simplicity is greater than ever. Accordingly, the secret of Apple’s success is simplicity not only in the products themselves, but throughout the entire system with which the devices can be networked. Perfectly geared to intuitive operation, the system allows all who enter it to exploit the potential of leading edge technology without any particular knowledge of computer science. The brilliance of the idea lies in its awareness of the fundamental human need for security and meaning, enabling ordinary people to keep up with and use the latest technological innovations. Apple’s homage to the values embodied by Dieter Rams could not have been more appropriate – or more comprehensive. For their debt to Braun extends not only to basic values but to individual design features of their computers.
If good design is a secret of Apple’s success, their success is also good for design. A whole industry has realized that technological innovation is no longer enough. Consumers have woken up to the benefits of well-made, lasting, meaningful products that genuinely add value to life. The market demonstrates it. There is too much of everything, and people look for products that reflect and fulfill their own high values and standards, and in doing so provide orientation in their lives.
Technical progress alone unmasks itself nowadays by the very ease with which product rankings, whether derived from other consumers or from rating institutes such as Germany’s Foundation for Comparative Product Testing, Stiftung Warentest, can be downloaded on laptop or smartphone, and inflated marketing promises thereby discredited before a purchase is made. Increasingly, therefore, real user quality has become the decisive purchasing factor, and only an enterprise that invests in the design as well as technology of its consumer products is assured of lasting success. Many German companies recognized the validity of this axiom early on, which does a lot to explain the commercial strength of German exports worldwide.
Continuously improving devices with user-friendly displays enhance comfort and simplicity of operation. But the victorious march of touch-screen technology has shifted design input away from classical industrial design to interaction and interface design. It is in this area that opportunity lies for today’s design school graduates and young professionals. Smartphones with big two dimensional displays are replacing traditional keyboards with physical buttons and keys. Industrial designers who regard this development as out of bounds are cutting themselves off from a new and rapidly expanding market.
Fig. 2: One camera, many user
interfaces. Jonas Buck’s design
study VIDEO has user-adaptive
software that displays functions
differently to match user
knowledge and interests.
Increasingly flexible forms of display will define the future aspect of these devices as never before, until product surface and display become indistinguishable. A second, equally important, feature is the increasing adaptation of technology and its user-interface to the skills and requirements of the individual. A UW research project on the complexity of technical products under the direction of Prof. Martin Topel, the author, and UW’s Associate Institute of Occupational Medicine, Safety and Ergonomics (ASER) already demonstrated in 2007 how operating displays could be changed for different target groups in order to provide maximum ease of access (see Jonas Buck’s design study, fig. 2).
Fig. 3: Shoot and save. The VIDEO system simplifi es
shooting, editing and storing photos and videos.
Future products will be equipped with levels of artificial intelligence that enable them to learn and adapt to their users’ individual priorities. Language, typeface and symbols can be optimized in accordance with parameters such as environmental light quality or the user’s eyesight. This is not just a matter of comfort and speed of operation but of good universal design. Less technically advanced users need not fear embarrassment because they are holding a beginner’s or senior citizen’s model: they are working with the same model as everyone else, but on a different interface. User inhibitions are thus reduced in several ways at once.
Ease and comfort will be enhanced still further when coming technologies enable operation by means of gesture, eye contact and speech as well as touch screens and conventional keyboards. Initial steps are already with us in the form of automotive communication systems or of the Apple iPhone equipped with motion sensors and/or with the language recognition program SIRI. Much remains for engineers and designers to do before the user-friendly PDA (personal digital assistant) equipped with artificial intelligence appears over the horizon, but the future promises an ever more natural and universally accessible integration of technology into our daily lives.
Simple design for a complicated world is synonymous with making progress useful to the masses by rendering complex technology readily and naturally accessible. The technology of new applications should be unobtrusive if their operation is to be comfortable and hassle-free. The physical use of a device should enhance, not detract from its usefulness. Good design must make sense, and it may also be fun, but it must be so user-friendly that we scarcely notice it.
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