Simplicity

Recently, I was asked to define simple system and hence simplicity. I realized there that defining such simple (sic!) concepts requires lot of intellectual stress and time. Fortunately, I bumped to a small video by George Whitesides at TED ( http://ted.com/talks/george_whitesides_towards_a_science_of_simplicity.html) in which he talks about simplicity. After taken cue from George, I realized that a simple system (or thing or concept) exhibits following characteristics:

1. Predictable/Reliable: System/thing must be highly predictable and reliable to ensure consistency.
2. Cheap in monetary terms: Must be cheap so newer innovations can be build over it
3. Intellectually Relaxed: Things/concept/system must be have large target population
4. High Performance or value/cost: Value delivered and cost incurred ( in terms of money, time and intellectual stress) must be sufficiently low to make it attractive
5. Stackable (Building block): Things must be able to act as building block in a larger and/or complex system.