Simple and Usable Web, Mobile, and Interaction Design

Part 2. Setting a vision

Two ways to describe what’s core

Whether you’re designing an entire website or a drop-down menu, you need a vision of what a simple experience should be. A vision gives you a way of judging whether you’re keeping things simple.

I have two ways of doing this.

The quick and dirty way is to write down a one-line description, in the simplest terms possible, of what I’m creating, along with a few guidelines I want to stick to. So when I find myself tied in knots over designing a comparison table, I take a step back and ask myself, “What is this for?” That description becomes my benchmark for a simple design. This usually works well when I am designing something very small (like one page in a larger website) and when I know ...