Because it is laid out in columns, this site doesn't display properly on a phone held vertically.
Please turn it sideways.
Because it is laid out in columns, this site doesn't display properly on a phone held vertically.
Please turn it sideways.
Information can look deceptively simple.
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Information can look deceptively simple.
This recipe is laid out as three paragraphs, but there aren’t three clear steps. You are asked to do a whole range of processes, some of which overlap each other in time. Then you notice that every page of this cookbook1 has the identical layout.
We’re looking at surface simplicity here.
The designer has valued a simple and elegant layout more than one that uses graphic techniques to articulate the information structure. It looks great in the bookshop, less so in the kitchen.
In effect, the hard work of sorting out the structure has been handed back to the reader.
As Giles Colbourne2 points out in his wonderful book Simple and Usable:
A unicycle is simpler than a bike until you try to ride it.
1. Oliver, J. (2012). Jamie’s 15 minute meals. Penguin.
2. Colbourne, G. (2010). Simple and usable: Web, mobile, and interaction design. New Riders.