Complexity vs. Simplicity

Finally, I get some time to talk about UI stuff. :-)

I'm going to talk today about Complexity vs. Simplicity and when you should use one over the other.

Example
Imagine if you had a car with just as many buttons as an airplane, would you even attempt to put up with it? I mean, all you need to drive a car is the wheel, your peddles, and the shifter. You don't need a button to increase power to one wheel over the other or a knob to control how much fuel goes to the engine in addition the amount of pressure you put on the gas peddle. All you need to get to work in the morning are those first three things I mentioned. This would be the discussion that goes into developing a car's UI. This is a great example of when to use a complicated UI versus a simple UI.

Now when you are flying an airplane, you are going to have a pilot who's been trained to use the complicated UI a plane offers. Now, he's used to that, but if you were to put the average joe in the flight deck, you'll have a problem.

Pros and Cons of a Complicated UI
A complicated UI can be just as benificial as a simple UI in some cases. The Complicated UI can give you much more control over your application, we are out of cars and planes now, than a simple UI. The down side of it is that you limit your users to just a much smaller group of people because not everyone will be able to use. Your taking your user group to trained and smart people.

Pros and Cons of a Simple UI
A simple UI is by far the most commonly used UI in products we use today. The only real down side to the Simple UI is that it gives you little to no control over the product you are using. A good example of this would be Apple's Mac OS X. There's a reason why developers haven't started to develop on Apple, that's because you are severly limited due to a restrictive, some what automated, interface. Windows is more complicated, giving you more options to manipulate the computer as well as the UI.

How do I know when to use which?
Pretty simple actually, analyse your audience! The people who will use your product should tell you that information. If you are going to be releasing to the entire world, use the KISS (Keep it imple, stupid) method. If you are going to be releasing the product to a small amount of users or the product is complex to begin with, no since dumbing down the UI, in that case, I would say go complex. Honestly, it's entierly up to you or your client to decide so make sure you check with them.