KISS

Kiss: "Keep It Simple, Stupid."

It's an age-old tip, but is it one you follow? When you're designing your websites, do you focus on keeping it simple? That isn't just about how it looks either, but the coding itself. When you start complicating things, how do you reel yourself back in?

 

I think I should have a mug of Iced Coffee. Works good with me when I fail to keep things easier and as you say - Simple.

 

Yes I do, but I always want my sites to keep growing, so my sites usually get more harder to navigate once they expand. I think when you have a site with a lot of features, you should just try and make sure it's easy to use for new users as well.

 

The question really is, what is simple and for whom? You have to answer that question with as much detachment to your project as possible. Look at it with eyes of the people you want to have using your system the most and then design for them. You won't be able to make everyone happy all of the time and that means even SIMPLE might not be completely right either. I think too often simple is mistaken for logical or intuitive. KISS should be KIIS,

Keep It Intuitive Stupid.

Scott

 

The truth is that the simpler you keep your code the simpler it will be to maintain it. I try to keep my code clean and as small as possible. That way I know that if I ever need to revisit my code to make some changes in a few weeks, months or even years I won't be having any trouble understanding my own code. I try to apply the KISS principle every time I'm coding a new website.

 

Yup. It's easy to lose sight of how others will relate to what you've created. You get caught up in how something looks and lose track of how it really works for the end-user.

Simplicity is good because you can always build on top of it, so long as the simplicity is maintained (and properly documented).

 

I'm a fan of simple clean websites, it's something that may be hard to explain but I know what I like.
Making use of white space is important but having a nice flow to the site ranks higher for me.

 

It just depends on the genre of the site. Some need to be simple and some not.