KISS- Keep it simple, stupid!
KISS is the design principle that says less is more, that sophistication is simplicity, and that something isn't perfect until you've stripped out all the unnecessaries. Something completely unlike the Rube Goldberg machine above!
There's two aspects to good kiss: aesthetic and practical. I've been talking a lot this week about simple but stunning webdesign, we've looked at myfav.es, moving on from the basic blogger templates and taken an early peak at Google Reader's possible future. Adherence to aesthetic principles is what makes Apple products attractive to millions, and commands a premium price for their gadgets.
KISS- Keep it simple stupid.
Aesthetics aside, with the bonnet up and our hands greasy, it is all about how it works, and you may have noticed that we've dropped the comma. Wikipedia has a full discussion on whether there ought to be a comma or not, but KISS with a comma signals that if the application or hardware fails then it should 'fail simple'. This kind of KISS warns against over-engineering a product or piece of software. The complexity to be avoided would be that which makes something difficult for a new user to understand, something that is counter intuitive, or something that requires a special tool or a Ph.D. in programming to fix. The chap who coined the phrase was an aircraft engineer- and expensive aircraft are not something you ever want to fail in a complex way- something that's simple stupid is something which ideally can be fixed with basic tools by a general engineer, possibly in the field under enemy fire. Less extreme examples of this kind of KISS include well-designed furniture which can be assembled using an Allen key, clockwork torches and radios, or this fun mouse experiment- how much instruction is there; how much do you need?
KISS in blogsAccording to good KISS principles blogs should fairly easy to use, just like a physical journal. You pick one that you like, that's the right size and in your favourite colour. You grab a comfy pen. Maybe you'll want to plaster the cover with stickers. You write in it daily and within a week it feels like an extension of your mind. Why isn't it like that with a blog? Why do they have to be clunky, idiosyncratic and difficult to use? I mean, the premise behind it is quite simple: text, pictures, maybe the odd video clip- does it really have to be this hard?
I recently created a new blog for my book group books@pub on tumblr. Now tumblr is where the cool kids hang out, they have a lot of really good themes which look slick on screen, but I did find it very difficult to use. From the dashboard I didn't find changing the design particularly intuitive, it didn't offer a live snapshot of what your blog would like like with each design, only what a very well executed and trendy blog with chunks of quotations and blurred photographs would look like. Blogger doesn't always fare much better. Without the Blogger in Draft Templates blogs can all begin to look the same, sure they're simple, but they can look like the ugly sisters compared to the standard Wordpress and tumblr designs. books@pub is a group blog which was not as easy to set up on tumblr as I anticipated, Wordpress I think is even worse for this. When you have multiple contributors it's important that it the registration process is simple for you and even simpler again for the others involved, who may not have the same levels of expertise.KISS for you
You too can apply these principles to your blog. Whether it fails simple or complex is fairly out of your hands, but you can make the reading experience better for your readers. It is worth spending some time to think about design. If the font is too small or serifed, if the contrast between colours isn't working then people won't enjoy reading it, and you'll enjoy writing it less too: it's worth taking pride in the display as well as the content. Have a look at other people's blogs for new ideas: is it worth adding a search function to your blog, a tag cloud? Do you have too many images and applications cluttering up your right and left hand navigation?
Try and find out who your readers are, what they search for and where they found out about you- this will help you tailor aspects of your blog to them. I use Feedjit and web analysis from eLogic, that knowlegdge gives me an insight into how my readers keep up to date with me, the kinds of keywords they search with, even their screen resolutions and browser choice- have a look at your site on a different machine, a different browser to make sure you're still gorgeous and easy to use.
KISS for libraries Millennials, born digitals and other buzz-worded social groups are used to machines, software and interfaces that have been designed to be both instinctive to use and that you can repair with a wizard or a diagnostic tool. These people are our readers and customers; the consumers of our data. I cut my teeth on the Commodore Vic20: this makes me a patient person with low to reasonable expectations; I can wait 30 minutes for something to load from a tape, use a card catalogue and Boolean operators in my search strings. Good for me: have an 80s childhood sticker!
Our undergraduate users expect instant information, interfaces that are second nature to them and the seamless integration of all available reources. So they should too, this level of service is something we should all aspire to. Take a look at these slides from the excellent I've got Google, why do I need you? They should get you thinking about the disparity of what we expect from our users, what they demand from us and how good design can bridge that gap.
