Dr. BJ Fogg from Stanford University does some interesting work in understanding Web 2.0 to human interactions... he even teaches a course at Stanford fully dedicated to Facebook :-)
Anyway, this is his model of simplicity as it relates to web apps, a very brief and rough intro, but maybe you'll find it useful - http://behaviormodel.org/ability.html
What I took away from it:
Anyway, this is his model of simplicity as it relates to web apps, a very brief and rough intro, but maybe you'll find it useful - http://behaviormodel.org/ability.html
What I took away from it:
- An ugly / simplistic but useful definition of SIMPLICITY: The minimally satisfying solution at the lowest cost.
- Simplicity is contextual, i.e. it depends on the situation or person (not necessarily the product)
- Simplicity is a function of your scarcest resource at that moment, where Fogg identifies these resources: Time, Money, Physical Effort, Brain Cycles, Social Deviance (i.e. going against socially acceptable norms), Non-Routine
Interesting stuff, he has many more resources on his web pages.
