LAWS OF SIMPLICITY: DESIGN, TECHNOLOGY, BUSINESS, LIFE, THE

Visible Language, 2007 by Poggenpohl, Sharon

JOHN MAEDA THE LAWS OF SIMPLICITY DESIGN, TECHNOLOGY, BUSINESS, LIFE Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006 ISBN 0-262-13472-1 108 pages, hardbound, $20.00

Everyone has technology tales - some devastating and some miraculous - it is a common thread through our lives. John Maeda, a member of MIT's Media Lab writes this small book as a technologist, user and father. I review this book as a long-time user from the punch cards and computer lab mystics of the early 70's, to the purchase of a used Apple Il in the late 70's, to the digital revolution of the mid- to late-80s and its energetic and pervasive continuation.

As the digital world becomes more ubiquitous - interpreting our actions and preferences - it provides unsolicited information, forming the unavoidable platform for our work, memories and even sense of identity. We endure micro-anxieties in relation to technology when we anticipate that something can go wrong and then when it does, the time we take from other activities (whether pleasurable or essential) to seek repair or resolution of the breakdown. Our digital dependency spawns micro-anxieties and life seems simultaneously more efficient yet more complex. This goes beyond feature creep in technological devices or planned obsolescence as marketing or economic ploys respectively, as it is about our life in relation to the digital objects we use.

Maeda is thinking about a remedy that is the title and substance of the book, The Laws of Simplicity. He admits that he hurried to get the book out as it is more than timely and he admits that not all the 'laws' are reliable or well worked out. He is honest about his sense of where his thinking resides and the book is really for the reader to think with and it communicates this character well. Consequently I will not reduce the message or give away much of the content. An example of his honesty is law 9 that criticizes the process of developing the previous laws, thereby undercutting them and presenting them as still under consideration.

Readers will no doubt respond to this book in terms of their own experience and preference for simplicity and complexity as we all differ in our sense of being well located, somewhat adrift or very lost, or for desiring either rules or soft guidelines. The book resonates for me as it stresses the importance of quality, is proactive about feeling and emotion and even reminds us of gestalt principles like closure. His examples are clear and well chosen and the writing itself is direct and simply stated.

Not surprisingly, the author has a website www.lawsofsimplicity.com with media connections. Here I am reminded of Philips 'Sense and Simplicity' a corporate mission to look again at objects and technology and their role in our lives. The New Everyday (2003) would be a good companion text to explore in relation to Maeda's The Laws of Simplicity.

Book mentioned in this review:

Aarts, Emile and Stefano Marzano. 2003. The New Everyday, Views on Ambient Intelligence. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers.

Reviewed by Sharon Poggenpohl