The philosophy of simplicity as a key value in itself is strategically important yet poorly understood and rarely systematically applied in IT. Instead, design principles attempt to focus on increased functionality within thinly disguised complexity, often at the expense of life cycle costs and total cost of ownership issues (e.g., training, system malfunctions, system upgrades). Designers and researchers alike must be challenged in their current thinking in order to make salient these trade-offs and impacts.

This session presents three points of view of how simplicity focused work can provide intrinsic and long lasting gains in Improving design and processes in IT systems. With the increased use of ICT in such socially critical areas such as healthcare, transportation, banking, and the pervasiveness of the telecommunication infrastructure society can no longer afford systems that do not perform as specified and are designed in such a fashion that change turns out to be administratively and economically infeasible. We examine here aspects of simplicity in the domains of design, deployment and provision, and evolution along the lifecycle.

Chairs

• Tiziana Margaria
• Barry D. Floyd