I couldn’t help but compulsively photograph seemingly mundane things, awestruck by their design. I did get some quizzical looks when blabbering on about a straw or ladder. But there’s a few lessons:

• Unimaginative people ask “why?” when confronted with a new idea and sit there, lifeless. Instead, ask “why not?” and do something new.
• Not every invention pans out, and that’s fine. At least you are trying to improve things.
• Several minor, 2% improvements add up over time (see the rule of 72). Everyday efficiencies are great — you don’t always need a breakthrough to make a difference.

More generally, the Pareto Principle is the observation (not law) that most things in life are not distributed evenly. It can mean all of the following things:

• 20% of the input creates 80% of the result
• 20% of the workers produce 80% of the result
• 20% of the customers create 80% of the revenue
• 20% of the bugs cause 80% of the crashes
• 20% of the features cause 80% of the usage
• And on and on…

But be careful when using this idea! First, there’s a common misconception that the numbers 20 and 80 must add to 100 — they don’t!

20% of the workers could create 10% of the result. Or 50%. Or 80%. Or 99%, or even 100%. Think about it — in a group of 100 workers, 20 could do all the work while the other 80 goof off. In that case, 20% of the workers did 100% of the work. Remember that the 80/20 rule is a rough guide about typical distributions.

Also recognize that the numbers don’t have to be “20%” and “80%” exactly. The key point is that most things in life (effort, reward, output) are not distributed evenly – some contribute more than others.

Life Isn’t Fair

What does it mean when we say “things aren’t distributed evenly”? The key point is that each unit of work (or time) doesn’t contribute the same amount.

In a perfect world, every employee would contribute the same amount, every bug would be equally important, every feature would be equally loved by users. Planning would be so easy.

But that isn’t always the case:

The 80/20 rule observes that most things have an unequal distribution. Out of 5 things, perhaps 1 will be “cool”. That cool thing/idea/person will result in majority of the impact of the group (the green line). We’d like life to be like the red line, where every piece contributes equally, but that doesn’t always happen.

Of course, this ratio can change. It could be 80/20, 90/10, or 90/20 (remember, the numbers don’t have to add to 100!).

The key point is that most things are not 1/1, where each unit of “input” (effort, time, labor) contributes exactly the same amount of output.

So Why Is This Useful?

The Pareto Principle helps you realize that the majority of results come from a minority of inputs. Knowing this, if…

20% of workers contribute 80% of results: Focus on rewarding these employees.
20% of bugs contribute 80% of crashes: Focus on fixing these bugs first.
20% of customers contribute 80% of revenue: Focus on satisfying these customers.

The examples go on. The point is to realize that you can often focus your effort on the 20% that makes a difference, instead of the 80% that doesn’t add much.

In economics terms, there is diminishing marginal benefit. This is related to the law of diminishing returns: each additional hour of effort, each extra worker is adding less “oomph” to the final result. By the end, you are spending lots of time on the minor details.

A Fun, Non-Math Example, Please

Everything is nice and rosy in the abstract. I want to give you a real example. Take a look at this awesome video of an artist drawing a car in Microsoft Paint. It’s pretty phenomenal what can be accomplished with such a basic tool:

Now let’s deconstruct this video. It’s about 5 minutes long, so each minute is about 20% of the way to completion (of course the video is sped up, but we are only interested in relative times anyway). Take a look at how the car evolved over time:

1:06 (Level 1) – Wireframe
2:00 (Level 2) – Basic coloring
3:05 (Level 3) – Beginning details: rims, windshield
4:04 (Level 4) – Advanced details: shading, reflections
5:05 (Level 5) – Finishing touches: headlights, background

Now, let’s say the artist was creating potential designs for a client. Given 5 minutes of time, he could present:

• A single car at top quality (Level 5)
• A reasonably detailed car (Level 3) and a colorized wireframe (Level 2)
• 5 cars at a wireframe level (5 Level 1s)

“But #5 is way better than #1!!!” someone will inevitably shout.

The point isn’t that #5 is better than #1 — it clearly is. The question is whether #5 is better than five #1s, or some other combination.

Let’s say your customer doesn’t know whether they want a car, a truck, or a boat, let alone the color. Spending the time to create a Level 5 drawing wouldn’t make sense — show some concepts, get a general direction, and then work out the details.

The point is to put in the amount of effort needed to get the most bang for your buck — it’s usually in the first 20% (or 10%, or 30% — the exact amount can vary). In the planning stage, it may be better to get 5 fast prototypes rather than 1 polished product.

In this example, after 1 minute (20% of the time) we have a great understanding of what the final outcome will be. Most of the “work” is done up front, in the sense of deciding the type of vehicle, body style, and perspective. The rest is “filling in details” like colors and shading.

This isn’t to say the details are easy — they’re not — but each detail does not add as much to the picture as the broad strokes in the beginning. The difference between #4 and #5 is not as great as #1 and #2, or better yet, a blank drawing and #1 (the time from 0:00 to 1:06). You really have to look to see the differences on the car between #4 and #5, while the contribution #1 makes is quite obvious.

Concluding Thoughts

This may not be the best strategy in every case. The point of the Pareto principle is to recognize that most things in life are not distributed evenly. Make decisions on allocating time, resources and effort based on this:

• Instead of 1 hour on a rough draft for an article you may write, spend 10 minutes on 6 outlines for a paper / blog article and pick the best topic.
• Instead of investing 3 hours on a website, spend 30 minutes and create 6 different template layouts.
• Rather than spending 3 hours to read 3 articles in detail (which may not be relevant to you), spend 5 minutes glancing through 12 articles (1 hour) and then spend an hour each on the two best ones (2 hours).

These techniques may or may not make sense – the point is to realize you have the option to focus on the important 20%.

Lastly, don’t think the Pareto Principle means only do 80% of the work needed. It may be true that 80% of a bridge is built in the first 20% of the time, but you still need the rest of the bridge in order for it to work. It may be true that 80% of the Mona Lisa was painted in the first 20% of the time, but it wouldn’t be the masterpiece it is without all the details. The Pareto Principle is an observation, not a law of nature.

When you are seeking top quality, you need all 100%. When you are trying to optimize your bang for the buck, focusing on the critical 20% is a time-saver. See what activities generate the most results and give them your appropriate attention.

“Balderdash – they want complex and powerful behavior!” exclaims the other side. And back and forth they argue, gnashing teeth and brandishing keyboards.

I think the problem lies in the confusion of terminology, which the authors hint at but don’t state explicitly. Pitting simplicity against complexity in a virtual cage match creates a false dichotomy, or the belief that you must choose one or the other. Both are possible.

This isn’t a cop-out, “can’t we all just get along” answer. I think the real issue is that we are mixing terms. Simplicity and complexity really can be friends, and don’t have to fight to the death (like Kirk and Spock they are best friends, and even if they do fight it’s only a charade).

When we argue about a thing being simple or complex, we are unknowingly asking two higher questions:

• How easy is it to understand?
• What can it do?

These are the questions we ineffectively try to answer using the words “simple” and “complex”. Unfortunately two words aren’t enough; we need four to answers these two questions:

How easy is it to understand?

• Simple: Easy to understand, straightfoward
• Complicated: Difficult to understand, convoluted

What can it do?

• Advanced: Does a lot, powerful
• Basic: Doesn’t do much, simplistic

Framing the problem this way lets us separate out the good and bad answer for each question.

Being simple or complex is a good thing. Being simplistic is an ok thing. Being complicated is a bad thing. Let’s see why.

Case 1: Simple and Basic

Simple and basic is the stereotype of simple: We think that if something is easy to understand, it isn’t capable of much.

This is true a lot of the time. Think about a rock, an oar, or a spoon. These are basic tools and easy to use, though they don’t seem to accomplish much. In software world we have notepad: it’s easy to understand, but not very powerful (no spell checking, embedded graphics, etc.).

Are simple, simplistic things good? You bet. They get their (simple) job done. And their ease of understanding is a great benefit: it’s excellent for education purposes, and often times we don’t need the power we think we do. In fact, having simple behavior often leads to increased reliability — how often does an oar “break down” compared to an engine?

Also, there’s nothing stopping you from taking multiple “weak” items to create a powerful one, like using thin threads to make a thick rope. I’ll touch on this later.

Rocks, spoons, and notepad are fine in my book: they have their uses.

Case 2: Complicated and Basic

Ah, now this is a strange beast. What item could be hard to understand yet not accomplish much?

A Rube Goldberg machine. It’s a contraption built for a basic task, such as lowering a sign, using absurdly convoluted and intricate means. Here’s what I mean:

These devices are complicated (can you immediately tell what it will do?) and basic (lowering a sign isn’t very awe-inspiring). They stink from a practical viewpoint, though they do have redeeming value for entertainment, artistic or educational purposes (how not to build a device).

Unfortunately some software is like a Rube Goldberg machine, like setting the clock on your VCR. Setting the clock should be a simple task, but it often involves a complicated, unweidly procedure because the interface of a VCR is not designed for it (”Press channel up to pick the date…”).

Strangely enough, people don’t seem to get entertainment value from seeing how complicated this is. They get frustrated, which is a bad thing. Items in this category should be avoided.

Case 3: Complicated and Advanced

This is the stereotype of most powerful devices: Sure, they can do a lot, but they are really hard to use.

A real-life example is a helicopter. It can fly straight up, backwards, and manuever in any way imaginable: it’s extremely powerful. Unfortunately, you need extensive training in order to operate one. I’ve never flown in one, but apparently it requires the use of all 4 limbs and your brain in order to operate it.

Items in this realm are often on the cutting-edge. They are our most advanced technology that works, but we are still in the process of figuring it out, discovering patterns and optimizations that make it easier to use.

Computers were originally complicated and advanced. Early computers were powerful (they could perform any computation, albeit slowly), but were very hard to use. You had to use punch cards or even enter information manually using switches. As time went on, we developed keyboards, graphical interfaces, and better programming languages. We were able to input instructions in a more simple (easy to understand) manner.

Programming is still not dead-simple: simplicity and ease of use is a range. But it’s clear that computers are vastly simpler (easier to use) than they used to be. The underlying technology, microchips, has become more advanced (powerful) and also more complicated (difficult to understand) in order to make computers simpler. There was a time when a single person could understand a microchip or operating system — no longer.

Complicated and advanced devices are “ok” — they do get the difficult jobs done, but when using them you often think there’s got to be a better way. And there often is.

Case 4: Simple and Advanced

Ah, this is the holy grail. This is what mathematicians seek by “elegant” equations, what scientists yearn for with beautiful theories, what designers seek when creating products. Consider Einstein’s famous equation:

Energy and matter are equivalent – you can convert one into the other. This concept is astonishingly easy to understand (simple) yet describes extremely powerful behavior (nuclear reactions). Many physics equations are like this: Gravity, Newton’s laws or Maxwell’s equations. They are 1-liners that guide us through powerful behavior, the workings of our universe.

Google is a simple interface for incredibly powerful behavior — finding any document on the Web. The ipod (I’ve never owned one) is claimed to be an amazingly simple device to manage and play music. Even programming can be like this: A Turing machine is a simple model of computation (writing symbols on a ticker tape) that can do the same calculations we can perform on a modern computer. Heck, MacGyver can create a bomb out of simple, basic parts like a toothpick, comb and bottle of shampoo.

Use Simple Building Blocks

Advanced behavior often comes from simple parts. The beauty of the Unix design philosophy was to have many simple, even basic programs that did a single task well: combining files, sorting them, counting lines or searching for words. Each tool was basic, but when linked via “pipes” could lead to very powerful behavior. If you are a programmer, I urge you to learn about Unix if you don’t already.

Much of the world is made from simple, easy-to-understand building blocks. Simple atoms make any object. Simple DNA (only 4 bases) is stretched into long sequences, creating the instructions needed to make a human being. The most intricate video file is still a sequence of 1’s and 0’s.

It didn’t have to be this way. We could have had thousands of elements in the periodic table. DNA could have had millions of different bases. We could have designed computers to store files with 0’s, 1’s and 2’s.

But that’s not what happened. The best-designed, most elegant systems are simple and advanced. Simplicity gives them reliability, and a clever arrangement of parts gives them power.

Simple Isn’t Easy

There’s one giant caveat here: “easy to understand” does not mean “easy to do”. Running a marathon is easy to understand. It is not easy to do. Similarly, actually creating powerful behavior from the easy-to-understand parts can be a challenge.

It’s tough to find underlying patterns in chaotic, complicated behaviors. It’s easy to get something working and leave it at that. But looking at our natural laws, there’s inspiration that nearly any complex phenomenon or design can be built simply.

Parting Thoughts

Have I resolved the debate? You be the judge. To me, simplicity and complexity coexist peacefully by thinking about two separate questions:

1) How easy is it to understand?
2) What can it do?

Don’t confuse a simple interface with basic behavior. Don’t assume a complicated device is powerful. Think about these questions independently and you’ll be fine.