Superficial, bloated, rambling, pretentious, not worthwile, 30. Januar 2008

I have a lot of respect for John Maeda's work, but not for this one. This one is just superficial ramblings.

It's actually a very good example how NOT to deal with the subject matter - the use of the completely meaningless acronyms is simply confusing and muddles the point. There are some very good books on simplicity in industrial design, and I guess most will be more worthwile than this.

Maeda keeps coming back to the iPod to make some shallow remarks about who in his family understood the interface and who didn't. It would be much more interesting to look at how that design has evolved from the ideals of Dieter Rams of Braun, to Johnny Ive of Apple.

Nothing like that happens here; inflated anecdotes replace what should have been insights, and where you expect a meaningful thought you find a limp joke.


I learned nothing from this book.

      With all due respect to the author, 3. Dezember 2007

A book review might inform you about the book as well as about the reviewer. With this in mind, I take the risk. I did not like this book....at all! I find it dogmatic and a bit of an ex-post explanation of "why the shot could not be missed with the i-pod". Remains the possibility that I totally missed the point...

       Never underestimate the Complexities of Simplicity! Must-Buy!, 7. November 2007

balancing simplicity and complexity is the challenge we all encounter in design, business, technology and life. john gives us ten simple laws to master that challenge, where the last law encompasses all others.
law no.10, which he calls 'the one', says: "simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful."

and he is right, we could live with that single law. in all our aspects of live. but we would have to practice a lot to achieve excellence in that.

it's a goal worth trying to reach. let's act! don't talk!