Developing Usable Experiences

Nothing is ever simple…like honey

November 12th, 2008 10:46 pm —  14 views

You’ve probably heard the saying about how things that seem simple have hidden complexity. I find this to be true again and again. All you have to do is look beneath the hood to find a complex machine carefully burning a precise mixture of chemicals delivered through carefully engineered tubes that propel you to the store to buy food your body can burn in a similarly complex yet extremely precise fashion.

I’m learning a lesson about complexity and intuition at work. Having dealt indirectly with the complex for a couple years, I saw an opportunity to try to simplify. With the help from Red, we made solid progress. However, what was forewarned came to pass. Though I fought valiantly against a complexity that couldn’t hide under scrutiny, a more complex and discouraging complexity took it’s place. And it did so in the guise of something simple. Without contention, the solution was simple, elegant, and lean. But alas, a complexity more insurmountable than the previous took its place. So I acquiesce while fighting to find and embrace a better way. And I’ll find it. Turning the complex into the simple is what computer wizardy and artistic license is all about.

So tomorrow I’ll embrace the challenge while pondering how best to explain the shifting sands that don’t appear shifty to dancing Bears. But then, maybe I won’t explain it at all. Sometimes I talk too much and this tends to make the simple complex, daunting, and maybe a bit boring. I much prefer questions instead of answers. At least when questions are of the interesting variety.

Deadlines for projects, papers, and homework loom while my day job pushes me along like an avalanche on a mountain with no foothill. Pushing, relentless, unforgiving, and impersonal is the nature of this cold, iron-fisted avalanche. Though I work to stay ahead of it, I can always feel the rumble of it’s approach. Never a moment to rest and focus.

Image: The arrangement on my dining room table inspired me to reflect. Salt, a mineral from the earth. Pepper, grown from that earth. Vitamins aggregated from earthly sources. And honey; assembled through the effort of the many, intended for the preservation of the few. Simple yet complex.

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