Over time, systems tend to evolve, shedding whats unnecessary, trending towards solutions that solve the root problems, and shedding the accidental complexity introduced by the biases of our mental models. Our solution biases arise out of experience, as we try to order our understanding of the problems, tools, and environment around us.
Essential Complexity v.s. Accidental Complexity is one of my favorite ways to break down problems with solutions.
Accidental complexity has to do with how much of the solution is complexity that is not inherent to the problem. It is complexity that has been introduced by the solution rather than the problem. An example some of you can relate to is when we used to memorize phone numbers. That was a complexity that was not inherent to the problem – we needed to talk to someone else. We still use phone numbers to tell people how to reach us, but we only memorize our own, and maybe a few key numbers in case we lose our second brain. The rest we put into our phones and quickly add the person’s name.
Essential Complexity is constraints and conditions that are natural, or inherent to the problem. Nothing can be stripped away and still describe the problem.
In my phone example, the base level of complexity is that you can’t hear someone from far away. The solution begins there, discover a way to transmit voice across distance. Turns out that is pretty tough, and at first we only were able to transmit tones. That was till world changing. Telegraphs and morse code opened up new worlds of possibility. You could deliver a message across the country in absolute fractions of the time it took to send a smoke signal across valleys, ride through towns, or write a letter to be delivered by someone. Telegraphs had plenty of accidental complexity. You could only transmit where lines had been laid. It was station to station, so you had to address it to a person, and someone had to deliver it to them. Those were constraints of the solution, not the problem.
Eventually the phone replaced the telegraph. We could hear voices over the lines. We could reach a specific person, and many people could be talking on the same system at once. Not too long ago it was commonplace to have a household phone, and you had all the phone numbers of your favorite households memorized. Everyone else could be found in a phone book, or your own personal rolodex.
The problem never changed, but the solution was evolving.
Originally people were satisfied with the briefest of messages because telegraphs were so costly. Eventually every teenager was talking for hours on the phone tying up the family’s line at home. No one else could break in and talk to that household. Another accidental complexity.
Remember Pay phones? That solved the problem of needing to communicate while you were out and about. That’s another dying phenomenon now that everyone has cell phones.
We’re at a point in history where it FEELS like we’ve removed all of the accidental complexity and strange requirements out of the system of communication. But that’s how it always feels, and that’s what makes people lazy about learning new tech, trying new patterns, and adopting new paradigms.
Over the years using a cell phone as a computer, I’ve noticed a subtle trend in my own usage. I’m not a naturally organized person, but I do want to be able to find the apps I use as quickly as I can. I’ve spent time and thought figuring out the best folder structure, and deciding how I want to group apps together. I’ve tried all folders, I’ve tried no folders (organizing by page), I’ve tried a mix of folders, and apps on the first page. Currently my home screen consists of a few folders, a few apps, and a few widgets. It’s still a compromise. I haven’t done enough observation of my usage patterns to figure out a truly optimized front screen.
Turns out what I’ve really developed is a system where I search. I have a few key apps prominent that I can access with a quick tap. Other than that, every other app that is a secondary citizen of my phone, I access with search.
On the iPhone, you pull down from the middle top, which gives you a text search. Type a letter and you start to see apps.
I think organizing apps is one of those accidental complexities. It’s not inherent to the problem. You want to get to your apps as quickly as possible. Memorizing their locaction in your organizational system is an acciental complexity. It’s not necessary to the problem of finding the app. Once you know the name, you should be able to find it without any other knowledge about your phone’s organizational structures. You don’t memorize the memory buffer address do you? Why memorize the page and folder its in? That’s a waste of your cognitive resources. Stop doing that.
Just search for it!
Imagine my surprise when I read that this phenomenon is being observed in the usage patterns of students. They no longer spend the time to keep their files and folders organized and structured. Why waste time and mental effort when the REAL problem can be solved a much easier way. Search for it!
Students don’t know what files and folders are, professors say
University students in courses from engineering to physics are having to be taught what files and folders are, The Verge reports, because that’s not how they’ve grown up using computers. Whenever they need a file, they just search for it.
“I tend to think an item lives in a particular folder. It lives in one place, and I have to go to that folder to find it,” astrophysicist Catherine Garland said. “They see it like one bucket, and everything’s in the bucket.”
Students think about a file system as one big bucket! And why shouldn’t they? There’s nothing inherently hierarchical and structured about storing files. It was always a way to know how to find and access them later. Why not just search for them?
I predict the same will happen with phones over time. For some reason we’ve lived with this idea that your apps have to be organized, and they all have to be displayed on a page you can swipe to. I can access any of my apps within three touches. One for the search, and two letters to get close.
If I had my preference, apps would install and they’d go straight to the app locker (on iOS, the page on the far right that has all the apps), and I’d have a few key apps on my first and only page.
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