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The KISS principle (acronym for "Keep It Simple, Stupid") states that design simplicity should be a key goal and unnecessary complexity avoided. It serves as a useful principle in a wide array of disciplines, such as software development, animation, journalism, photography, engineering, and strategic planning. Common variants of the acronym include: "Keep It Sweet & Simple", and "Keep It Short & Simple".
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Related concepts
The principle is somewhat similar to Occam's razor, and Albert Einstein's maxim that "everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."[1], or Antoine de Saint Exupéry's "It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away".
Colin Chapman, as Lotus founder, urged his designers to "Simplify, and add lightness".
Rube Goldberg machines illustrate the sorts of problems that may arise with "non-KISS," overly-complex solutions.
Instruction creep and function creep are examples of failure to follow the KISS principle in software development. This is known as "Creeping Featurism".
In film animation
Master animator Richard Williams explains the KISS Principle in his book The Animator's Survival Kit and Disney's Nine Old Men write about it in their "Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life" book which is considered "the animation bible" by CG, traditional and stop motion animators. Inexperienced animators may "overanimate," or make their character move too much and do too much, such as carrying every accent over into body language, facial expression, and lipsync. Williams urges animators to "KISS."
Variations for the acronym meaning
Keep it simple. (The second 's' is a needless complication in direct contradiction to this principle.)
Keep it simple and stupid.
Keep it small and simple.
Keep it sweet and simple.
Keep it simple and straightforward.
Keep it short and simple.
Keep it short and sweet.
Keep it smart and simple.
Keep it strictly simple.
Keep it simply simple.
Keep it simply stated.
Keep it stupid... simple! (A sarcastic criticism that illustrates a common misreading and misuse of the KISS principle.)
See also
- You Ain't Gonna Need It (YAGNI)
- Don't repeat yourself
- Corner case
- Principles of War
- Kitchen sink syndrome
- Rube Goldberg
- Heath Robinson
- Unix philosophy
- Occam's razor
References
- ^ Hoch, Stephen (2004). Wharton on Making Decisions. New York: Wiley, 137. ISBN 0471689386.
- http://quotiki.com/quote.aspx?id=7923
- This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 21 August 2008, at 12:25.
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