Instructional Message Design: The Laws of Simplicity - Reduction

Instructional Message Design: The Laws of Simplicity - Reduction

Maeda (2006) proposed ten (10) laws of simplicity inform instructional design for online learning. The laws are listed below:

THE TEN LAWS OF SIMPLICITY

Reduce: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.

Organize: Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.

Time: Savings in time feel like simplicity.

Learn: Knowledge makes everything simpler.

Differences: Simplicity and complexity need each other.

Context: What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.

Emotion: More emotions are better than less.

Trust: In simplicity we trust.
Failure: Some things can never be made simple.

The one: Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.

The laws of simplicity posit that multimedia messages should be designed in a way that is clear, well-organized, logical and easily understood by the intended audience, as opposed to presenting and designing information arbitrarily with great ambiguity. 

Law 1: Reduce

In this week’s post, I’d like to focus particularly on the first law which is the law of reduction. Maeda (2006) suggests making things as simple as possible and removing unnecessary complexity. I am currently employed at a university that is heavily influenced by the British education system, and very often in the academic world there is the tendency to make things unnecessarily complex/complicated…and I’m not sure exactly why that may be the prevalent trend. This ranges from basic instructions to access or use a particular service or platform to directions for finding a classroom on my campus, and even in coursework instructions. It may be limited to my local university contexts, but for some reason there tends to be the misconception that being wordy, providing an abundance of information all at once and generally making things seem complicated/complex is assimilated to being profound, learned or an academic. But according to Maeda, effectiveness is not based on being unnecessarily complex, but it is really based on keeping things as simple as possible. To this end, Maeda proposes the following continuum:

how simple can you make it?    ⇔       how complex does it have to be?

If the goal of instruction is to ensure that the intended audience/target group understands the message, shouldn’t that message be articulated in a simple manner to reduce ambiguity and enhance accurate comprehension? #justmytwocents 

Working as an eLearning Support Specialist, I encounter many websites which include websites affiliated with my university, as well as my Google applications etc. One thing that I find somewhat off-putting is the abundance of instructions when all I want is to access the site/feature😒😑😦. Very often when I see overly complex instructions, I just close the window and find simpler route/site/application.....some might see this as laziness, but I see it as trying to keep it simple for me to understand (simplicity and efficiency) 👀😊

The images below illustrate an educational site that students have to navigate just to get to the affiliated Learning Management System or LMS (see previous post on LMS). This can often be a long, pedantic and in my opinion an unnecessarily complicated and inefficient process, particularly for someone who just wants to access the LMS for a quick review of something, or to submit a project....it's almost like a simple goal/task that has been made super complicated - unnecessarily😦😩 #why.

Accessing the LMS at a particular institution:

1.      Access the campus’s main page and select a campus for which you are enrolled (see below)

2.      A new window will appear. Insert your login credentials to enter the site. Click on the MOODLE icon to access the campus’s LMS (this tiny icon may be hard to find in such a complex/busy page).

3.      A new window will appear. Insert your login credentials to enter the campus’s LMS (note, if it is your first time logging in, you will automatically be prompted to change your password which will require you to open/check your university email account)

A more efficient approach would be to simply direct users to the specific site they would like to visit, and eliminate all the directions to the other sites that they need to navigate before getting to the desired site – in other words, eliminate the need to visit the first two sites below and simply have students go directly to the third site/illustration. This is where Maeda’s (2006) law of simplicity may be quite applicable, using the first law of reduction to reduce the steps and/or sites to access the LMS to one single step – to go straight to the campus’s LMS site and login.

In conclusion, Maeda’s (2006) law of simplicity regarding reduction can be applied not just to educational instruction, but it may be applied to other fields and aspects of life e.g. human/personal relationships. Sometimes you can say a lot and increase efficiency by keeping it simple. Never complicate the simple things in life.

Justin Z.

References:

Maeda, J. (2006). The laws of simplicity. Cambridge, MA: MIT 

https://designopendata.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/lawsofsimplicity_johnmaeda.pdf