Notes from 56th International STC Conference
Atlanta, Georgia, May 2-5, 2009

Keynote Address:
The Power of Simplicity

David Pogue

With a background in music, English, magic, and computer science, Pogue turned technical communicator when he didn’t do quite as well on Broadway as he had hoped. What he had done is sharply hone his computer skills and was in high demand in both the Broadway crowd and the Hollywood community. This led to the writing and publishing of "Macs for Dummies", which was the best-selling Macintosh book for 7 years until it yielded that distinction to his sequel, "iMac for Dummies". He published a novel entitled "Hard Drive" which the New York Times named “notable book of the year.”

Session Description: Pogue gave an extremely entertaining presentation, liberally peppered with outrageous examples of needless complexity.

• Opener: Ich bien a technical communicator!
• Simplification is becoming increasingly threatening with the ever-accelerating onrush of new technologies. They’re coming.
• Software upgrade paradox: constant addition of features to justify yearly upgrades may eventually make the software so complex as to be less useful.
• What’s the answer?
   
• Consistency, when possible
• Real-world equivalents, usually
• Labels, mostly
• But break any of these conventions in favor of intelligence (common sense).
• Palm Pilot: the three-tap rule; more than 3 = too complicated. They focused on making the most of every pixel on the very small screen.
• Where are all these features to go? There’s only so much screen space. Design tools are limited (menus, submenus, and sub-submenus, contextual menus, buttons and checkboxes, and toolbars).
• The complexity crunch in ever-smaller devices has reached the breaking point—forcing simplification (iPod’s success was due largely to its simplicity for the user).
• iPhone ... Steve Jobs’ condition was Cingular didn’t see the design until just before the debut. No other carrier would agree.
• The cult of simplicity is going to be the key to success.
• A modest suggestion: Avoid these words:
   
• Content (call it music, writing, whatever it is).
• Dialog (call it a box)
• Display (v.) ... do not use it without a direct object
• D.R.M. Digital Rights Management. Call it copy protection.
• Enable. Use “turn on.”
• Functionality. Call it a feature.
• LCD: Use screen.
• PDA: Use palm pilot
• Price point. Call it a price.
• URL. Say web address
• SMS. Say text message.
• Support (v) ... not noun.
• User. Say “you.”
• Final advice:
   
• For ordinary humans
   
• If it doesn’t work, it’s not you
• Be aware of good and bad design
• For designers
   
• Easy is hard; pre-sweat the details
• Count taps
• It’s not what to add; it’s what to leave out
• Simplicity sells.