Simplicity - Everyone wants it, few "get" it....

"Simplicity," and its cousin "clean design," are two of those design buzzwords that users (and marketers) love to ask for - but accomplishing simplicity is itself not all that simple! A product simplified without careful consideration for usability becomes enragingly difficult to use - it either cripples the power of the product, or forces the user into an unintuitive (or merely not to the user's liking) flow of operations. Two companies that are just plain good at making things usably simple are Apple and Google - and Eric Burke of "It's Just a Bunch of Stuff that Happens" makes an excellent recognition of this with his comic at left. You'll have to click the comic to get the final panel, since I don't want to steal the guy's thunder...
[via The Product Usability Weblog]