Don't write that things are simple

Eleanor Konik’s newsletter and working on some docs reminded me of how much I hate being told that a thing I found really hard is “simple” or “easy”. And of course she summarizes it fantastically:

Don’t minimise difficulty

Saying that something is “simple” etc is rubbish if your user doesn’t actually find it simple, can be really demotivating for them. The things people find simple vary so much based on lived experience, background knowledge and a whole host of other factors. Add in the missing context - you don’t “just” do a thing, you do x preceding steps then the thing, and the user can then make the call for themselves whether those steps are easy.

Delete all those words from your text. You could set “simple”, “just” etc to be flagged like badly-spelled words, or use a linter like write-good for VSCode or Vale.

Further Reading

• justsimply.dev is a beautifully-designed website that goes into more detail with examples.

Sources

• Don’t Minimize Difficulty essay by Eleanor Konik
• This article by Brian P. Hogan