I interpret the gist to be: a) to hide things, you need to build more things, and every "more" inevitably increases complexity, b) when something is hidden, but you want people to find and use it, you need to build yet another more to enable that --> increasing complexity.
I'm not sure how to balance/integrate this truth with the now bountifully evident truth embodied by iphone and family that simplicity enables. Tognazzini expounds on this masterfully, but figuring out how to apply that to my own work... not so much! As for encapsulation in programming : indubitably a tremendous insight and boon. I'm unsure what the corollary in interface design is, perhaps Leo itself is that. :) (not just being witty. Leo allows objects and all kinds of code constructs to be hidden and stashed away, and still quickly opened and used when needed.) On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 6:57 AM, Edward K. Ream <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 6:40 PM, Matt Wilkie <[email protected]> wrote: > > "Any attempt to hide complexity will serve to increase it" > > http://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/#discoverability > > Thanks for this link. > > I've bookmarked it and skimmed through it. > > My first thought was that the quote must be wrong, or at least > incomplete. For example, the iPhone interface is a brilliant way of > hiding one kind of complexity. Buttons, not a command line. > Presumably, that's not the point of the quote ;-) > > As another example, hiding/encapsulating complexity is perhaps the > most important overall principle in software design. This principle, > and no other, has enabled Leo's design to remain reliable and > relatively unchanged for almost 20 years. > > But the link is about UI design, so perhaps the remark makes more > sense in that context. > > There are plenty of good-sounding principles in the post. If you have > a specific suggestion for Leo (or better yet, a pull request ;-) based > on one of those principles, please let me know. > > Edward > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "leo-editor" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
