What Is the KISS Principle?

The KISS principle is a high-level realm of user experience. To understand this sentence simply is to make a product that even idiots can use, so it is also called the "lazy principle". In other words, "simple is beautiful." The KISS principle originated from David Mamet's film theory and was gradually extended to other areas.

KISS principle

If the KISS principle can be applied everywhere, then this world is really too Simple and Stupid.

First of all, different nationalities and regional cultures greatly affect the way people behave, and simply asking KISS may not be appropriate.

Second, a specific enterprise will have different states at different development stages. At the start-up stage, it was a kind of spontaneous KISS, which gradually grew later, and then became bloated. After that, work on optimizing systems and processes may be carried out, which is regarded as an active KISS. After the Big Mac state, the KISS principle will not be the best choice.

Third, even looking at companies in a stable period, they still need to decide whether it is necessary to transform the KISS direction of a certain type of business and a certain process according to the development strategy and business needs. For example, for cost-benefit considerations, management may prefer a certain expense center to remain stable, instead of spending 20% to increase efficiency and effectiveness by 5%.

In today's era of fierce collisions between Eastern and Western cultures, primitive-complex-simple represents the development process in many aspects, and it tends to spiral upward over time. The "simple" advocated by KISS should be the "simple" of this advanced stage, both at the code level and the management level. Therefore, the KISS principle should be regarded as the direction of efforts under the conditions of permission.

KISS principles can be used in many ways, and the more complicated things are more likely to cause inefficiency and waste of resources. When designing, people always follow one of the most basic KISS principles. Of course, there is a good explanation for this principle. In the design, simplicity and simplicity are taken as the standard. Because simplicity and simplicity make it easy to develop, maintain, and operate, the sales are more and the market share is larger.

Advertising Design

"Make it simple." Advertising ideas must be simple and clear, innocent and rustic, and fit the theme in order to make people remember and impress.

According to advertising master Berne Buck, "It is not enough to be creative and innovative in the expression of creativity. Outstanding advertising is neither an exaggeration nor a disguise. Instead, you must use your wisdom to make the advertising message. Simplistic, clear and dramatic, it leaves a deep and indelible memory in the minds of consumers. If the plot of creative expression is too much pursued, it will inevitably make the advertising information ambiguous and unintelligible.

For example, a "family planning" newspaper advertisement in Taiwan is a classic. Family planning advertisements have always been a headache for advertisers. If they are inappropriate, they will be dismissed as "vulgar" and "sexual indoctrination". However, Taiwan Huanghe Advertising Co., Ltd. uses "the phrase is natural and ancient, and luxurious Seeing Zhenchun's concise, rustic ideas, won two international advertising awards. The screen of this advertisement only has a condom head and a baby pacifier, and the rest are blank, giving people a sense of neatness and brightness. There is only one sentence in the article: "Be more careful and less worried."

Extremely simple, original, and persuasive. The pictures and articles are concisely like a Tang quatrain. One word is more cumbersome, and one word less is harmful, thus leaving a deep and unforgettable impression. ^[3]

Former General Electric Chairman Jack Welch once said: "Management is to simplify complex problems and standardize messy things." Many times, the reason why our work has not achieved good results, or even completely invalid, It is not because the work itself is too difficult and complicated, nor is it because our enthusiasm is unwilling to give, but because the thing itself is very simple, we have complicated the simple work.

Always remember: stupid people always complicate simple problems; smart people can always make complicated problems simple! In the case of difficult problems, we may wish to change our thinking, not to complicate simple problems, let alone to complicate complex problems, but to simplify various problems so as to grasp the essence of the problem. It may be possible to solve all the problems by solving the core solution directly.

One of Japan's largest cosmetics companies received a complaint that some of the soap boxes they bought were empty and had no soap. To prevent such problems from happening again, the company's leaders appointed an engineer to solve the problem of producing "empty boxes". The engineer set up a scientific research team of more than a dozen people, using a combination of machinery, microelectronics, automation, X-ray detection and other technologies, and spent hundreds of thousands to solve the problem.

Soon, the engineer designed an X-ray device equipped with a high-resolution monitor, which required two people to monitor the soap boxes passing through the production line to ensure that there were no empty boxes in them. Whenever an empty soap box passes on the production line, high-resolution monitors on both sides will detect it and drive a robotic hand to remove the empty box from the production line.

At the same time, a small cosmetics company encountered the same problem. The boss said to the small workers who manage the production line: You must solve this problem. The small worker asked the company to buy a high-power industrial fan and place it next to the production line, and put a basket on the other side. The boxes filled with soap pass one by one in front of the fan. As long as there are empty boxes, they will be blown off the production line and dropped into the basket. As a result, nothing was omitted and the problem was also solved.

We have to admire the wisdom of this little worker who is good at simplifying the problem-the empty box is characterized by being lighter than a box filled with soap. Although he didn't know what X-rays and manipulators were, he started from the light and solved the same problem in the simplest way, and he didn't hurt the people. And the engineers of the first company, although they worked very hard, did not have the slightest slack, and finally succeeded in solving the problem, but spent the financial resources to buy high-tech equipment, and added personnel, which simply complicated simple problems. .

It can be seen that the simplest method is often the most effective. If you know how to delete complicated things, you can use the least time, the least resources, and the least manpower to do the most efficient work! ^[9]

Microsoft Press has published a classic book "Full Contact with Game Programming", which has such a story:

There is a cafe near Microsoft. In this cafe, customers can continue to refill sea drinks. The cafe offers only two kinds of coffee made from different coffee beans, and they are the same price and the cup size is the same. But people found an amazing fact: the waitresses in this cafe have incredible memorability-whenever a customer wants to refill, they never need to ask the customer about the type of coffee they have selected, but never Wrong type of coffee chosen by guests, and it is true for everyone!

Only later did people understand the truth of the matter. It turns out that these waitresses are not exceptional in memory, nor are they any special training they have received, nor is there any sensory device on the coffee cup, but the difference in the color of the mug pattern containing the coffee! The waitress was informed on the first day of work that the red coffee cup was used to hold A coffee, and the blue coffee cup was used to hold B coffee. See, this is the charm of simplicity. A simple and effective rule is more effective than anything! The real solution to the problem must be simple and not complicated.

Nothing is easier than being busy, and no more difficult than being productive. Turning complexity into simplicity, good at simplifying and simplifying complex problems, is a magic weapon to prevent busyness and do more with less. The problem cannot be simplified, confused with complicated phenomena, or even made the complicated problem more complicated. It can only be trapped in the quagmire of the problem, resulting in busy and passive work and low efficiency. Only by being good at concise things can things be done quickly and well.