The simple secret to making your designs simple is that it’s not so simple to do.

Title: How To Achieve Simplicity In Design
Context: The desire for simplicity is not the same as a commitment to simplicity.
Synopsis: Everyone claims to love simplicity. “Things shouldn’t be difficult to use! Make it simple.” But dare to ask them what features they would be willing to remove in order to achieve simplicity of use and they will stare at you blankly, unable to process the question. Is simplicity a tradeoff between feature robustness and streamlined workflow? Perhaps, but this is not the user’s problem to solve. No, simplicity is the designer’s burden. We must intrinsically understand not just the object we are designing but we must also understand the user – maybe even better than they themselves do! There is much hard work involved in creating simplicity for end users, which adds complexity to our job, but that – quite simply – is what is our job to do.
Best Bit: “We know simple when we see it, when we touch it, when we use it. And one thing we quickly learn is simplicity is difficult to achieve.”

via vanseodesign.com