Living with complexity

What Hacker News says

1. someone7xJan 2024
   Have you read the later book Living with Complexity?

   It is pretty much this topic; how to reconcile complexity and confusion.

   He talks a lot about reaching designs of irreducible complexity as a way to mitigate confusion.

   For what it’s worth, I’d say that Git is pretty far from irreduciby complex and thus has preventable confusion baked into it.

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2. hbtDec 2017
   The blog post barely gets into the idea of what simplicity means in programming.

   If you have any interest in the topic, I recommend Rich Hickey talk "Simplicity matters" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8tNMsozo0

   My personal favorite is: Living with complexity 2010 by Don Norman (Author of Design of everyday things)

   https://www.amazon.ca/Living-Complexity-Donald-Norman/dp/026...

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3. themoonbusNov 2014
   Minimalism isn't timeless, minimalism itself is a trend in design.

   It's definitely a trend with merit, but it isn't some absolute truth to always strive towards.

   I would recommend reading "Living with Complexity" by Don Noarman for some interesting arguments about why complexity in design isn't inherently bad.

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4. InnocentBMay 2011
   Donald Norman (of The Design of Everyday Things fame) talks about the various strategies for this in his newest book, Living With Complexity. It's an interesting problem because it turns out enough people follow the antisocial strategy of taking from the larger roll (what Berners-Lee calls K in his protocol) that both rolls will often run out within short intervals of each other (less than µ).

   Norman proposes the strategy of "nearest roll first" instead of "smallest roll first", which is an easier strategy to accommodate through toilet paper dispenser design. Many public stalls hide the spare roll inside a contraption for this purpose.

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5. kamerontanseliMay 2020
   This reminds me of what Don Norman quotes in "living with complexity" around how people buy the microwaves with all the buttons even though it's harder to use.
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6. dr_dshivMay 2020
   “Complexity can be tamed, but it requires considerable effort to do it well. Decreasing the number of buttons and displays is not the solution. The solution is to understand the total system, to design it in a way that allows all the pieces fit nicely together, so that initial learning as well as usage are both optimal. Years ago, Larry Tesler, then a vice president of Apple, argued that the total complexity of a system is a constant: as you make the person's interaction simpler, the hidden complexity behind the scenes increases. Make one part of the system simpler, said Tesler, and the rest of the system gets more complex. This principle is known today as "Tesler's law of the conservation of complexity." Tesler described it as a tradeoff: making things easier for the user means making it more difficult for the designer or engineer.” ― Donald A. Norman, Living with Complexity
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