Simplicity in Design

The importance of user experience with a clean and easy look in a design is significant. Let's put ourselves in the shoes of a user right away. What do you actually want from the sites you browse and shop on daily? Simplicity and ease of use…

Isaac Newton says, "Nature is pleased with simplicity."

The question is: did everyone actually share the same understanding of simplicity? We believe that simplicity should be of a quality that allows us to compare, present everything clearly to us, and enable us to understand. UX always keeps product design, branding, globalization, and usability experience at the top and moves in that direction.

With a product that is simple and easy to use, we understand that simplicity is the most important feature of making something user-friendly.

In UX, the importance of simplicity in visibility is apparent, because when we compare "complexity" with "simplicity" today, it is a widely held view that complex designs are actually more attractive.

It is hard to capture people's attention today. A study conducted in Canada stated that human attention spans have shortened from an average of 12 seconds to 8 seconds since the year 2000.

This is because information has now become something that is easily consumed. People's range of movement has expanded and they have too many options. A visitor's time on a page happens in quite a short period, and greeting the incoming user with a simple and comprehensive easy design rather than a complex one will offer a much healthier experience to capture their attention.

As UX designers, we try to improve things step by step to free them from complex structures. It is easy to take something simple and make it complex, but doing the opposite requires effort and we actually face many challenges while doing so.

Is it possible to completely eliminate complexity? Actually, it is not; however, it is possible to somehow change its forms and apply it.

When we balance simplicity in our designs, we can actually enhance the user experience by taking our projects to the next level.

If needed as an example, you can visit Skyscanner. When we first enter the site, we observe that the color guide is designed in harmony with the brand identity and a color palette has been chosen that will not disturb the user.

In the form structure, everything is simple and all the searched items are actually together in one place, but the correct use of formats for mixed locations comes from proper usage. The CTA button aims to motivate the user to take action by using both the right colors and the right expression. Additionally, by adding sample information inside the inputs, the user is informed about what they should be searching for.

In another example; the site greets the incoming visitor with a banner and we observe the user scrolling to reach the form structure. Recently, sites have been experiencing visitor loss due to users' scrolling laziness.

When we reach the form, the round-trip date is given in a larger structure and when a date is selected, there is no button structure for users to take action. In this case, users will exit the page and search again. This means a more complex structure, extra actions taken, and the possibility of losing the user at this point may be higher.

Converting the purpose of a website and driving traffic; however, doing this without offering a good experience will be difficult. We must stick to UX design rules keeping simplicity and clarity in mind.