If you’ve designed software long enough, you know that something simple to the user is usually not simple to make. It takes time, thought, and energy to whittle down a complex interaction into something that “just works”.
Complexity buried. Interactions consolidated. Words pruned. Edge-cases handled. Assumptions made. Cleverness without confusion. Ego out the door.
Simple is hard for the builder.
I feel like we need another word for that kind of simple. The kind we builders all know is layered in complexity underneath.
So, I look to the Japanese. They gave us Kanban. Kaizen. A feature and a way.
A word I found is Shibui (渋い). Wikipedia says…
Shibui objects appear to be simple overall, but they include subtle details, such as textures, that balance simplicity with complexity.
It’s not perfect. In fact, it’s a little off from the kind of simple I mean. The subtleties and textures I’m thinking about are those things underneath—those things that you can imagine the builder had to reconcile to get to the simple part.
Another word is Kanso (簡素).
It's a core aesthetic principle that emphasizes a minimalist approach, focusing on the beauty found in essential elements and the absence of unnecessary ornamentation.
Maybe a bit too much about minimalism and the resulting aesthetic, and not so much about the hard path to getting there. But hey, it does sound more like Kanban and Kaizen.
Shibui, Kanso, or something else. I dunno. We ought to have something!