CPH127

As a matter of fact I think John Maeda will be able to provide you with a better answer, and there’s probably a slight better chance that he’ll see this. See his blog at http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/SIMPLICITY/

I think it’s a matter of marketing. Simplicity as a concept sells (at least is what the Philips brand team thinks) but in reality it doesnt tell anything about the quality of the product/label. A product can be very simple (few features, focus on the main functions) but useless and dificult to use. In my vision simplicity is not a property that belongs in a product. It belongs to the user side in relation to a certain product/object.
SO i would never buy a product just beacause of its simplicity. I would buy product for its ease of use, even if it is a complex one.

I tend to agree with your thoughts on this Joao…I see simplicity being about the nature and quality of the experience of a product or service - not neccessarily the product or service itself which might in fact be quite complex. You are right to emphasise “ease of use”…

I work with a small Shanghai - based design group who quite co-incidentally have published a newsletter, found at: http://www.birdsandfish/august05.html called “Simplicity” for about a year now [we recently changed to name to “Simplicity squared” after discovering the existence of John Maeda’s web publication of the same name].

The point is that we work in the complex China market. We acknowledge that “simplicity” is central to our product/service. However the product is not simple in itself. We strive to offer a “simple to use” service that facilitates design and business communications for international clients in a very complicated business environment. It is the simplicity of the “service experience” that is important. This “simplicity” is in fact an experience design problem - and it is a very challenging thing to achieve and maintain…

Here is the actual link included in the previous comment
http://www.birdsandfish.net/august05.html