Labs for Design & Business

I want to share my journey to understand whether people like simple forms or not. This is an interesting research topic because we can find many simple products designed by Naoto Fukasawa, and we also have two great thinkers who do not seem to completely agree with each other about the same issue: John Maeda and Don Norman. 

First, I hypothesize that consumers prefer simple forms over complex forms because simple forms provide some cognitive gains (e.g., easy to use or performing better) than complex forms. I further hypothesize that (1) people prefer simple forms when less informative forms are eliminated (e.g., play button on the mp3 player) and that (2) they do not prefer simple forms when highly informative forms (e.g., base control button on the mp3 player) are eliminated. 

I conducted one pilot study and two experimental studies.  

The pilot study showed that subjects preferred simple forms over complex forms (BBQ grill and Portable speaker).

Study 1 also showed that subjects preferred simplified forms over the original complex forms (computer mouse, usb drive, humidifier, and portable stereo). Interestingly, although they were provided with the identical functional description about each product, they answered that the performance of the simple forms would be better than the performance of the complex forms. 

Finally, study 2 showed that subjects preferred simple forms only when less informative buttons were eliminated. When highly informative buttons were eliminated (Q-sound, T-base, and song translation), subjects did NOT prefer simple forms over complex forms. However, when less diangostic buttons were eliminated (play, rewind, and forward buttons), subjects preferred simple forms over complex forms.

In sum, studies showed that consumers prefer simple forms over complex forms and that one cause of the simple form preference is cognitive gain.