How to Design New Information Environments That Don’t Suck

Jorge Arango conjures Gall’s Law, the 40-year-old dictum of systems design that remains as relevant as ever:

“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.”  — John Gall

Every ambitious project launches amid a thicket of fears and grand hopes. The worst thing you can do is try to design for all those assumed outcomes (let alone the edge cases). Start with a sturdy but simple system and build from there as you learn. As Jorge writes, that’s the appeal (and necessity) of the MVP:

When the product is real and can be tested, it can (and should) evolve towards something more complex. But baking complexity into the first release is a costly mistake. (Note I didn’t say it “can be”. It’s guaranteed.)