What’s worse is something I akin to a kind simple complexity. A lot of things are needlessly complex because of a relentless drive to ‘simplifly’ to the point of paradoxical complexity and difficult operation. The classic example I was shown was a pre-internet one funnily enough. It was a radio that was ‘one touch’ operation. It had but one button. Trouble is, generally even for something as simple as a radio, one tends need slightly more control than just one button and so to actually operate the thing one had to press this one button over and over and over again to select things from a large array of potential operations and also to somehow know and memorise different lengths of time to press this one button to initiate different functions. Nowadays this idea is taken to a terrible extreme on things that get commonly labelled as ‘devices’ basically any computer that isn’t a traditional desktop ‘PC’. You’re trying to find something specific and that function is in some ridiculously obscure place behind a tiny hidden button menu that is presented to the user through use of small esoteric icons rather than words, because of a desire to remove clutter. You end up with ‘clean’ website or interface design where there’s very little in the way of navigational or important operational functions that could crowd or overwhelm the user, but also HUGE irrelevant items or logos to interact with in ways basically no one would ever desire to do, or tons of white space that does nothing. Sometimes I’m astonished because it doesn’t even work on a cynical level where you subtly funnel people towards doing the things you most want them to do on your site or app, like buying things, because the design is so poor and obfuscated that if you literally wanted to buy something or find out where a place is so or when it opens so you are even able to buy something, you just… can’t because all you seem to be able to do is follow circular links of grinning idiot stock models back to where you started on a torturous merry go round of needless frustration that benefits neither you nor the people that designed the system giving you all this grief.

I was all for this simple interface drive initially, when websites begun to have ‘mobile’ versions they were typically better than the original site and devoid of the mess that one had to otherwise contend with, but now they’ve paired everything back so far that basic obvious functions are near impossible to find or outright missing. The effect is most pronounced I’ve found in Google apps, but it’s everywhere. It makes things complicated whilst simultaneously being ridiculously dumbed down and simple. The worst of both worlds. It’s like someone took “Keep it simple stupid” and misinterpreted it as “keep it stupid, simple” . Drives me nuts.