tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8662858581791799812.post4210345350565066077..comments2007-06-13T08:47:25.307+01:00Oscar Berghttps://profiles.google.com/109479022314471643787noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8662858581791799812.post-29935898257176866422007-06-13T08:47:00.000+01:002007-06-13T08:47:00.000+01:00Very interesting. Don Normans "Design of Everyday Things" once changed how I looked at IT. Some people are afraid of letting others into their territory, so they make things more complex than they need to be. This is common in the academic world, but sadly also in the IT industry.Oscar Berghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13364324951599654650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8662858581791799812.post-10677765177997734592007-06-13T05:01:00.000+01:002007-06-13T05:01:00.000+01:00I wrote a short essay on this very topic. <BR/><BR/>In practice, people appreciate simple elegant solutions. However, in a working relationship people value complex design.<BR/><BR/>Why does this paradox exist? I have a number of ideas on this...here's one:<BR/><BR/>Hindsight bias. When you first start trying to solve a problem, the direction you should go is hard to determine. If a problem has been solved in a simple, elegant way, the solution begins to look obvious; it's so clear, that everyone immediately forgets how tangled and complex the initial problem space was to define and attack.<BR/> <BR/>Against all logic, they reach the mind-boggling conclusion that no work was done.<BR/><BR/>In "Turn Signals", Don Norman describes the purposeful complicating of academic writing thusly:<BR/><BR/>"If the writing is easy to understand, then the ideas beneath them must be inferior: simple writing reflects a simple mind."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com