KISS principle

The KISS principle: KISS is a bacronym for the empirical principle "Keep it simple, stupid".^[1] KISS states that design simplicity should be a key goal and that unnecessary complexity should be avoided. Some propose that it follow its own principle by dropping the redundant letter to be: KIS "Keep it simple". Another possible interpretation is "Keep it short and simple"^[2].

Related concepts

The acronym was first coined by Kelly Johnson, lead engineer at the Lockheed Skunk Works (creators of the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes, among many others).

While popular usage translates is as 'Keep it simple, stupid', Mr. Johnson translated it as 'Keep it simple and stupid'. There was no implicit meaning that an engineer was stupid; just the opposite.

The principle is best exemplified by the story of Mr. Johnson handing a team of design engineers a handful of tools, with the challenge that the jet aircraft they were designing must be repairable by an average mechanic in the field under combat conditions with only these tools. Hence, the 'stupid' refers to the relationship between the way things break and the sophistication available to fix them.

The principle most likely finds its origins in similar concepts, such as Occam's razor, and Albert Einstein's maxim that "everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler".^[3] Leonardo Da Vinci's "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication", 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, the founder of Lotus Cars, 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".^[1]

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 Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, 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".

See also

• Minimalism
• Sysico principle
• W. Heath Robinson
• Worse is better
• You ain't gonna need it (YAGNI)
• Less is more

References