Instructional Message Design: The Laws of Simplicity - Failure

For this post, I'd like to look at Maeda's (2006) laws of simplicity as it pertains to the law of failure. Here, Maeda (2006) acknowledges the likelihood of failure to make a message any simpler/less complex....and as such, I personally see this law as the law of exceptions. According to Maeda (2006) "there’s always an ROF (Return On Failure) when you try to simplify—which is to learn from your mistakes" (p. 83).

I find this law to be a principle of life....that failure is a part of life....and more than just failing, it's about learning from your mistakes. I always like when I can make a link between educational technology and real life.....sometimes I do get frustrated when I'm used to using a particular software to deliver a certain message (e.g. Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Excel) and I encounter some functionality that either fails/becomes difficult to resolve, and it leaves me like....

lollllll......but I soon take a #timeout and come back to the situation apply Maeda's law to learn from my mistake.....for example, to ask for help or try a different machine etc....or just accept it as a failure, learn, and move on, and be like 😁😁😁😁

So failure is a part of life....but it's also an integral part of effective message design!....and becomes essential if we learn from our mistakes.