LAWS OF SIMPLICITY
Laws 7 & 8: Emotion and Trust

Emotions are a constant within the design sphere. It’s about breaking people’s attachments to things, so they can form new ones, or reinforcing the good feelings that are a part of certain brands. From a rational perspective, then, simplicity makes both good economic sense as well as emotional well-being. Something clean, or free of clutter, allows the mind or the eye to have room to breathe, to not be so assaulted by the blinking, large, colorful and complex designs which are out there. Simple objects are easier and less expensive to produce, and those savings can be translated directly to the consumer with desirable low prices, and simple products— as evidenced by furniture retailer Ikea. Emotion is found in every facet of our lives: in our faces, our intonation, our writing, our gestures. It can be the tilt of a smile or the simple use of an emoticon in a text. Emotional intelligence is now considered an important facet of leaders today, and the expression of emotion is no longer considered a weakness but a desirable human trait to which everyone can immediately relate. If the best art “makes your head spin with questions,” then it is clearly the same with design.

Trust is something people want to have. Trust in products, trust in design, and people. If design is a system, then the more a system knows about you, the less you have to think. Conversely, the more you know about the system, the greater control you can exact. Privacy is sacrificed for extra convenience when following the lead of a master. Alternatively, the sort of undo action which we all strive (impossibly) to have in our lives, allows us to become the masters of ourselves by gently learning to trust our own knowledge of a system. The placement of faith goes both ways.