Tag Archives: complexity

The Quest for Elegant Simplicity

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Photograph of three stones stacked in the center of a pattern raked into the sand of a Zen garden.In our business solutions class we have been studying product and process innovation and the need to maintain the right balance between desired features and unmanageable complexity. After the recent high profile outages at the New York Stock Exchange and United Airlines, I wonder if the balance has tipped toward the latter. Both outages reportedly happened because of software upgrades and the interaction between the old code and the new code. In some instances, there is so much complex code that no one can tell what is going to happen.

Elegant Simplicity

I believe that there is a sweet spot between simplicity and complexity that I call elegant simplicity. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. is reported to have said: “For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn’t give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have.” There is a big difference between crude simplicity and elegant simplicity. Perhaps you have come across a product, service, or process that is well thought out and just works, every time. Here are a couple of my favorites, and I invite you to write to me about yours.

Netflix

As I shared with our class, I love the Netflix service. I have been a customer for several years and it always works as promised. I am a DVD customer and I have established a personal queue from their selection. As soon as I am done watching the current DVD, I send it back in the prepaid envelope and the next one in my queue comes very quickly. They send me unobtrusive e-mails to let me know that they have received my DVD, and another e-mail to let me know that my next movie is on its way. I just received notification that they are consolidating both of those e-mails into one, to further reduce the mail in my inbox. They read my mind. Netflix does the job I need to have done and no more. They have fulfilled my definition of elegant simplicity.

Internet Radio

Another example of a product that for me just works is my internet radio. This is a recent purchase that I easily connected to my home sound system and my wireless router. I then found several stations that I listen to on a regular basis. This product is complicated, but the interface is intuitive, either from the front panel, the remote, or from the smartphone app. I can access several thousand stations and it delivers exactly what I need and no more. It can be as elaborate or as simple as I want it to be.

These examples highlight products that are complex under the surface but provide a simple user experience and are reliable. In these I have found elegant simplicity free of the complexity that could make them unreliable.

Thoughts

I am going to strive to find that spot of simplicity on the other side of complexity in my writing, my work, and my life. Will you join me? Do you have examples of products, processes, or services that make you smile? Our innovation class would love to hear from you and learn from your experiences.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional and assistant professor of practice for the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity—Quality Does Matter

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Road and roadsigns in the form of a question markI have been thinking recently about software and product quality. There is a software quality conference this fall here in the Pacific Northwest and I recently read an article on the top ten software blunders of the last decade. As we rush products to market, are we compromising quality? What negative effect does that have on our product? Is it worth it? Is it acceptable? Is it the price we pay for doing business in a hypercompetitive world?

Continuous Exploits

In late April, it was discovered that there was yet another hole in Internet Explorer that allowed hackers to exploit vulnerabilities and plant malicious code on individual computers via infected websites. This is just one example of applications and operating systems with bugs waiting to be exploited. My question is this—are product developers and quality assurance teams releasing inferior, not-yet-ready–for-prime-time products, or are the products so complicated that developers do not understand all of the implications until after they have been tested by consumers? If it is the former, then the answer is to wait until all of the bugs are detected and corrected to release a superior product. If the answer is the latter, then that means that you and I are paying for the privilege of being product testers. Personally, I can think of better things to do with my time and money.

A Simplistic View

I will admit that I may be taking a simplistic view. My experience runs towards hardware products and support, although there are still quality products in that arena as well. According to Microsoft, Windows XP, which was released in 2001 and recently became unsupported, was compiled from forty-five million lines of code. Thirteen years later we have Windows 8.1. How many lines of code are in this operating system? Is the complexity sustainable or are we building products that we cannot manage? With this increasing complexity, have we resigned ourselves to a certain number of acceptable bugs? What is our tolerance level? One percent of nonfunctioning or potentially compromising code? Is that acceptable?

Thoughts

Nineteenth-century writer Oliver Wendell Holmes once said “I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” I believe that we are stuck in the middle of that complexity right now. While our products are sophisticated, they lack that elegance on the other side of complexity. We have learned to write incredibly complex code, which is understood in part by individual coders but in entirety by no one. This is the very thing that makes that code vulnerable to exploits and security breaches. If we could somehow find that simplicity or elegance on the other side of complexity, then we could enjoy robust, secure, and usable products.

Do you have or use a product or application that you think has broken through that complexity curtain? Share your find with me.

About Kelly BrownAuthor Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional, adjunct faculty for the University of Oregon, and academic director of the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.