I loathe the acronym KISS or Keep It Simple, Stupid not because the term itself is without merit, that couldn’t be further from the truth, I don’t like it because stupid is a terrible word and should be banned from all of our lexicons.  But when speaking to the business world about the future of website design and development, I tell our clients that simplicity is the solution we should be striving for. And that goal, time and again, can be found in our past.

The acronym KISS was actually stated by a fellow named Kelly Johnson nearly 50 years ago who was the Lead Engineer at Lockheed, the designer of jet fighters and spy planes. Supposedly, Johnson gave his team of engineers a handful of tools and challenged them to design a jet fighter that could be repaired under combat conditions only with the few tools they were given. Want more history? The great Chicago architect, Mies Van Der Rohe said, “Less is more” and long before him Leonardo da Vinci said it better than anyone, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

I speak throughout the country about the complexities of simplicity; if you think developing a website that is simple to navigate, that accesses content as quickly as you can say Jakob Nielsen, that tells a quick and compelling story, and leads the guest to an actionable task, well, I’ve got news for you, it’s not - and I mean not by a long shot. Think about it in these terms. The Nielsen Norman Group conducted extensive research and concluded that we only read 28% of what’s on a web page. Basically, you and your content (words, videos, graphics, demos and the like) have a one-in-four chance of being seen. Those odds stink so why complicate matters? And as we all know, the average web visit can be measured in a couple of minutes and generally less. There’s no time to waste.

I have a lot more to write about this subject, and I will in the future, but for now, I don’t want to over-complicate things.