Tag Archives: minimalism



Reductionism

November 30th, 2018

Reducing to the bare essentials.

What (and only) what is required, at the bare minimum.

When we built Nudge we went through this process, stripping away anything that wasn’t essential to the product.

How we got there was:

  • Phase 1, we reduced our rough version to the bare basics.
  • Phase 2, we then dramatically expanded out the functionality we needed.
  • Phase 3, we then used an existing library to display all of this functionality (it was terrible).
  • Phase 4, we then dramatically reduced, removed colours, layers, buttons, menus, just to the absolute bare minimum.
  • Phase 5, iterate and continue to refine.

This helped make the product distinctive and create an air of simplicity – for a product that is data centric, a great outcome.

As we grow though, there is always the tendency to creep. Why don’t we sneak this in here, or maybe we just put this in this menu. Complexity sneaks up on you.

That’s ok, as long as we keep our commitment to reducing. For some periods of time we’ll be off but we’ll mostly be on track.

It’s like any project it takes commitment, discipline and focus.

And that’s the fun part of the journey.



What are you doing all the way down here? You could:
- View my about page
- Or for first timers the New Here? page
- Or maybe email this to a friend
- Or subscribe to get blog updates