KISS me

This entry was posted on February 7, 2008

Oh how I love acronyms. First we had CRAP, and now we have KISS. I wish I was making these acronyms up, but I’m not. So what does KISS stand for?

Keep it simple, stupid.

The Internet is a fast-paced entity. People scour the Internet looking for the information and they don’t like waiting for it. Once we’ve decided we want something, we want it right now. We don’t like hunting around for things when we’re not even entirely sure where they are.

This is where the KISS principle comes into play. Web users are not unintelligent, but they can be considered to be ’stupid’ when it comes to certain things. Just because you understand the structure of your site, does not mean that anyone else will understand it.

Keep things simple, and cater for users’ expectations. There are certain conventions that we have come to expect on a website, and whilst throwing these conventions out the window can work in some cases, it will not work in the majority of cases.

Get rid of the clutter from your website. Think of it like a teenager’s bedroom. If there’s a pile of dirty washing, another pile of ironing that needs put away, a stack of DVD’s that was accidentally knocked over and not picked up, and posters all over the walls - how on Earth do you expect someone to find their calculator for their Maths homework?

Don’t get me wrong - I’m not suggesting you get rid of absolutely everything from your website. After all, without content, a website would not exist. I’m just suggesting you take a moment to step back and see how your website looks to other people. Will they be able to use it in the way you intend, or have you completely confused them?

And why is this post called “KISS me”? Well, I’m probably one of the more ’stupid’ Internet users. If I can’t immediately find what I’m looking for, I’ll sulk and go searching somewhere else until I find what I’m after. Can I have a KISS please?

11 lovely people have commented

Vera said:

It’s not that they’re unintelligent… *points at self* but rather their attention span is very small. I either scour the Internet for a given code, or explanation for some parsing error. In this case… I really don’t care for “fancy” link names, scrolling text not to mention “clever link names”.

The other reason I surf the net, is for entertainment. While I do like mind games, I don’t solve complicated Maths problems for fun. Well I don’t solve any sort of Maths problems for fun So I like things to be straightforward.

Simplicity is good. So KISS

Aisling said:

We had to do a unit on KISS in broadcasting class. It can be hard to talk to your audience, assuming they know less, without sounding condescending though. I think most audiences are actually more intelligent than we give them credit for. For example, I studied the phenomenon of the “mommy show,” which are, like, the shows that mom’s watch during the day (duh). Even I was irritated by the blatant dumbing-down of some of the programs. Just because you have a baby, doesn’t make you one. Just because you don’t have a website, doesn’t mean you can’t understand how one functions. So, yes, keep it simple, but not to the point where you are blatantly pointing out that you think your readers are a gang of idiots.

Jem said:

KISS is a very old acronym - pre-dates the Internet! It’s a concept that should be applied to most things in life, not just web pages, heh.

Rachael said:

^ Oh, of course. I was just talking about it in terms of web pages though… Give us a KISS.

Maren said:

Personally I think acronyms that turn out to be words completely unrelated to what they are supposed to stand for are stupid. If that makes sense. :p

Kristina said:

I love this new acronym xD
Funny, I’ve never heard of it before :S

Kaylee said:

Once a friend of mine mixed up the acronym and said “Keep it stupid, simple!”

I don’t think my site has enough things to be cluttered if it wanted to :/

Chantelle said:

My 8th grade science teacher was obsessed with that acronym. KISS is great and all, but I like a lot of things complicated. My personality is just messed up like that.