Instructional Message Design: The Laws of Simplicity – Organize

Instructional Message Design: The Laws of Simplicity – Organize

In the previous post, I elaborated on Maeda’s (2006) law of simplicity as it pertains to reduction, and connected that law to the complex processes and website navigation at an institution I am very familiar. In this current post, I’d like to elaborate on the same series of websites through another one of Maeda’s (2006) laws – the law regarding organization. This law states that proper/effective organization can help make a system of many things appear fewer…..no, it’s not fraud/trickery lol😁.

As I thought upon this principle, it reminded me of the saying that “first impressions count”……in my previous post I stated that when I encounter websites that are complicated etc I simply close them down and continue searching for a simpler site of instructions. This I’m sure is what many people do, especially if you’re always on the go like me.

This week had a few members of faculty come to me for some one-on-one training via a series of clinics on accessing the campus’s LMS and setting up their online courses. Even though they were randomly from different departments, fields, etc, they ALL had an issue relating to organization of online content. While some complained that the campus’s websites were way too cluttered with an abundance of unnecessary information and links etc, others created online courses that were perhaps even more so cluttered with assignment instructions, announcements etc….which I’m sure is off-putting to their students. So while they may find the campus’s websites off-putting….their students sometimes find their online courses rather off-putting....logging in, hit by the vast onslaught of disorganized content like a head-on collision with a truck, and left feeling like....

.....that's exactly what I feel as well when I visit those course sites as well.

As I relate this situation to me, I remember many times logging into the faculty’s courses and immediately feeling overwhelmed by the information that hits me upon entering their courses….so one can only imagine how their students feel. That said, I think Maeda’s law of simplicity regarding organization is necessary because it relates even to the layout and design of content on a webpage. I think if this law were applied to my context, the websites (both administrative and course/LMS sites) will be much cleaner, less cluttered, and persons become more receptive to the web content when they visit the sites – as opposed to leaving the site or ignoring the important announcements. Like me, I’m sure no one wants something that is confusing and draining to read, let alone understand….that’s why Maeda advises on keeping things simple….and this may relate to the organization of web-content in my professional context....keeping it simple helps to keep it clean/well-organized...and to this end, planning is essential.