Tesler's Law
For any system there is a certain amount of complexity which cannot be reduced.
Key Takeaways
Every process has a core of irreducible complexity that cannot be designed away — it must be managed by either the system or the user.
Designers should ensure that as much of the inherent complexity as possible is handled by the system rather than transferred to the user.
Be careful not to simplify an interface so much that it becomes abstract or unclear — some complexity serves the user's needs.
Origin
Larry Tesler, while working at Xerox PARC in the mid-1980s, recognized that the way users interact with software was just as important as the application itself. He argued that engineers should spend extra development time reducing complexity in the application rather than forcing millions of users to spend extra time navigating unnecessarily complicated interfaces. Bruce Tognazzini later expanded on this idea, observing that users tend to respond to simplified applications by attempting more complex tasks — a natural balancing of complexity.