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‘The role of the designer is not to simplify complexity. It is to conceptually organize it, and render it accessible.’ Jorge Frascara1
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‘The role of the designer is not to simplify complexity. It is to conceptually organize it, and render it accessible.’ Jorge Frascara1
Complex systems are rich, powerful, and capable, while simple ones may be useless outside of the limited context for which they were designed.
For example, a map of my town is more complex and more confusing than the set of specific directions I give you to help you walk from the rail station to my house. But if you make a wrong turning, my simple directions quickly become useless.
In many, perhaps even most, cases, the process of simplification doesn’t reduce the underlying complexity and richness of content, but improves our ability to navigate it – it produces a simpler experience, or a simpler understanding.2
1. Frascara J (2022) Revisiting “Graphic design: fine art or social science?” – the question of quality in communication design, She Ji, 8: 1, 270-288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2022.05.002
2. I’m indebted to Kate Cooper, who took me task on this issue when we launched the Simplification Centre in 2007. I don’t think we resolved the question of what to call the opposite of simple/clear/easy to use. Complicated? Difficult?