Why complexity is essential

Minimalism and simple design are in high demand in modern design. Expressions like ‘clean’ and ‘sleek’ are a compliment for a well designed product that makes use of simplicity.
As a result, complexity is perceived negatively. Especially in design, it’s common wisdom to avoid complexity. But does this opinion really apply all the time?
To figure out the answer to this question, I explored complexity and simplicity. On that journey, I made some interesting discoveries and came to some not-entirely-obvious conclusions.

What I’ve come to believe is that complexity isn’t the problem. The problem is the way information is organized. Now you might be thinking: Duh, the problem is complex organization.
But that’s not actually what complexity means. The Oxford Dictionaries defines a complex system as “consisting of many different and connected parts which aren’t easy to analyze or understand, complicated or intricate”.
That definition is quite abstract. Let me try to explain it with a metaphor.

Think of complexity as a noise. A noise that consists of many voices. Theses voices represent the different parts that make up a complex system (the noise). This noise, representing complexity, is the sum of all these voices put together.
Usually, noise is considered as something negative. Nobody enjoys a bunch of people talking over each other or a noisy NYC street. But voices have the potential to be quite remarkable. A good book, movie or song for example consists of countless such voices. They are all layered over each other to create one stunning masterpiece.

Then why don’t we enjoy the noise if the voices themselves may actually be beautiful? Well, it is because we can’t comprehend these voices. They don’t appear in a format that we can process.
So in fact, the real problem is that the voices are not composed in an appealing way. Clever organisation would package the voices in a way that we can understand.
Then, the good in every voice can add to the value of the whole.

However, some voices might be repetitive or redundant. Leaving those out won’t discard that much information and that way they won’t draw focus from the important voices. Once you’ve gone through the process of analyzing, sorting out and reorganizing the voices you arrive at simplicity.

Simplicity is basically a refined version of complexity. It starts with the same information that complexity displays and refines it, throwing out the stuff you don’t need and rearranging it to be easier to understand.

Therefore, that process from complexity to simplicity describes both at the same time.
Simplicity is clean, without the unnecessary stuff and intuitively displayed.
Complexity on the other hand, doesn’t have that inherent structure, but instead some more details and might seem a little messy.

Overall, simplicity and complexity share similarities but also differences.
To visualize this, imagine complexity and simplicity as two standard bedrooms.
The simplicity room is clean, just like a clean design. In simplicity, the clothes are in shelves, the blanket on the bed is folded into a perfect rectangle and only the essential tools are openly displayed.
Meanwhile, the complexity room is a hot mess and doesn’t seem to be organised. Clothes are piled up on the floor, the blanket is somewhere in that pile of clothes and anything that’s ever been taken out of a drawer was never put back.
Even though the two rooms look very different, they contain almost the same things.
‘Simplicity’ is organised well and you can only see the most important things first. In contrast to that, ‘Complexity’ is very hard to understand for anyone who doesn’t know the room really well because of the specific organization.

You can also see this in other cases. Take a regular diesel semi for instance:

All of the buttons convey plenty of information meaning that there’s a lot of data communicated between the driver and the vehicle.
Take the air conditioning for example. It’ll probably be a turnable knob that has some symbols on it. This control shows the current state of heat regulation and all of the other options. All of this information is communicated with the driver once he looks at the knob. In the semi, many knobs and buttons (information sources) are combined causing an information overflow. This overflow can easily lead to confusion when all of the information is communicated in a way that we can’t easily process (as discussed previously, it’s too much input at once).

On top of that, the features aren’t displayed in an intuitive way. There is too much input requiring a certain knowledge and routine. However, the semi driver usually doesn’t have any major problems controlling the vehicle because he has acquired this knowledge. Additionally, he starts to blend out the complexity; but only because he gets used to it.

The semi driver obviously has an advantage to a regular driver (trying to drive the diesel) because of the truck driver’s specific knowledge. However, that doesn’t mean the truck driver won’t encounter any issues operating the vehicle. And the car obviously driver isn’t likely to be able to drive the diesel.
The reason for performance issues is the lack of understanding the user in the design. This design isn’t focused on being understandable to anyone. If everyone could understand it the car drivers wouldn’t have any problem driving the semi. The design doesn’t put enough effort into ensuring a flawless workflow. That’s why so many components are very hard to understand for a car driver. Maybe not the air conditioning because it’s in a car, too. But plenty of controls will be confusing because they are unknown to the average driver.
The issue with the design is that it’s just too complex, too noisy.

A few months ago, Tesla unveiled their all-electric semi truck. Besides having an incredible performance, the semi turned heads for it’s amazing minimalist design.
Just taking a peek at the interior makes things crystal clear. There are no buttons, everything is controlled by two large displays, and the only seat is centered to ensure an optimal view for the driver. This seat is designed very organically, meaning that it’s based on flowing natural forms. The surfaces are clean and there are no wild textures. The minimalist design embraces the stunning view which is anything but simple. It’s very complex, constantly changing and very detailed.

When compared to a regular diesel, the Tesla semi looks stunning, but very simple. One big factor is that Tesla doesn’t use buttons. This practice cleans up the whole appearance and clears the surfaces.
Now even though it might not seem like it, the design is actually very complex. However, it’s clean interface makes the complex input look simple.
Take the air conditioning from above: it’s controlled by using one of the two displays. Now the air conditioning obviously isn’t important enough to be on the home page. But after just a few touches on the display, it’s fully available to control. And when it isn’t needed, it can just simply be hidden to make space for more important information. This prevents information overflow.

So does the Tesla semi use less information? Not really. It’s not missing out on anything that’s important. Sure, they sort out some things that are unnecessary. That’s a characteristic of simplicity. But overall, the designers roughly use the same amount of information. They just use simplicity to filter the complex noise into one clear voice. The primary interior objects are displayed centrally (seat, steering wheel) but secondary components (everything inside the display) are layered in a clear design to simplify the interface.
A car driver would have few, maybe even no interface issues driving the semi due to the clear communication of the design. It’s probably going to take some time for them to adjust to the form factor, though.

Additionally, Tesla makes use of the previously discussed technique of simplification for the semi. They take the interface information of a regular diesel (however with much better performance), get rid of all the buttons, remove any confusing features (such as the synchronization of devices), and rearrange it in a user friendly form factor (the two displays).
The result: a semi designed with simplicity. And that is exactly what many modern designers aim for.

Tesla’s design language is very clean and simple looking — a goal of many design companies. Their products look amazing and on point which makes us love them even more. However, if everything was designed by Tesla the world would be very B⬤RING.
There would be something missing. But luckily, having a world of simplicity is impossible.
To simplify every design really takes a lot of effort. You would have to take every product and implement the simplification process.Additionally, to achieve complete simplification, you would have to entirely get rid of raw complexity.
As a result, everything would be simple. Since simplicity is relative the problem will be: What is true simplicity when everything is simple?

That’s why some things will always ‘need to be complex’.
Would you rather see a sky that’s one tone of blue or a beautiful complex sunrise which is so beautiful and breathtakingly complex that it’s impossible to describe simply?

It’s the ‘stand out from the crowd’-principle; like in the image above. Without knowing or seeing you, I can tell that you first noticed the green umbrella. But why do people immediately look at it and not say the second umbrella to the left in the seventh row?
It’s obvious: the green umbrella stands out because, unlike the other umbrellas, it’s a bright and fresh green, not a pale dark blue/black.
Simplicity is the dark umbrellas and complexity is the bright one.
A lot of simplicity can look very clean but an image of 100% simple umbrellas just looks pale. On the other hand, only colorful umbrellas would be a bit much.
When you change the situation so that all of the umbrellas are bright and only one is pale, the focus isn’t on the solely pale one. First you notice the crowd of bright umbrellas and then you’ll eventually see a pale one. The green umbrellas however might be distracting and a bit much to process.
Simplicity removes this distraction to put the spotlight on complexity. In the illustration above, simplicity helps complexity to be special. To stand out.
Overall, the right balance of both components leads to an amazing outcome.

As a contrast (not an opposite) of simplicity, complexity is key to its existence. Simplicity is about focusing information, creating clarity by shifting focus to the central relevant things. And those things oftentimes are complex.

It becomes very clear once you look at bandwidth.
Simplicity includes great focus, genuinely trying to put your eye on what’s important and not distract from it, but rather complement it through clarity. Its objective is to take up as little bandwidth as possible to focus on the important things.
Complexity is great, too. Movies, art and music for instance are a perfect example of modern day complexity with positive outcomes. You would definitely not want these things to be simple.
A perfect example is the latest Thor movie ‘Ragnarok’. Taika Waititi, the director did a really great job on a very awesome movie. It’s super colorful and the costume design and locations are absolutely stunning. And they are everything but simple.
However, pure complexity is too much to process so simplicity needs to balance it.
So in the end you need both, complexity and simplicity.

Simplicity and complexity may seem pretty different from another but less than one might expect them to be. They are contrasts, not opposites.
Too much simplicity is boring and too much complexity confusing. There isn’t supposed to be just one of them. Complexity depends on simplicity to focus the input and simplicity can’t exist without complexity to draw the attention to. Simplicity and complexity need each other. They contrast each other and that contrast is essential to communicate personal preferences and to make things stand out.

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