I open Windows’ Live Writer, I type, I press “Publish” and I’m done.

For all those who dispute Microsoft’s ability to make something simple that works well—well, I wouldn’t need to argue with them. Just knowing Live Writer is out there tells me people who make these spurious statements have the wool pulled over their eyes or aren’t looking in the right direction.

Sure, there’s more to do in Writer than my description in the first paragraph but that’s just added value. You don’t need to use the extras if you don’t want to. This is a fundamental to good application design. No, it’s the highest principal of all, an axiom:

Extra features are nice, but they shouldn’t stand in the way of getting the job done.

Axioms are all well and good, but how do we make those that have influence on our apps understand this principal? Honestly I often go home feeling like I’ve spent the entire day talking to a brick wall. And those walls are impossible to get around. This frustrates me like only fellow developers can understand. Shabby applications are not all our fault. They are often the sum of many decisions and arguments: good, bad and unfortunate.

Tags: axioms, good design, simplicity, creativity