Less is more: good UI design, good health care.

The Less is More concept to application/UI development has been around for a long time and–on the web–has gotten a bit more press lately with the whole ‘web 2.0′ (blech) trend to simplify tasks and interfaces.

I agree with this. Even I fall into the trap of overdesigning the functionality of my applications. Yesterday, I, along with my fellow developer, sat down and realized that the way we were storing content in our CMS was unecessarily complicated based on the reality of how our users would use the system. We had originally designed it to be incredibly flexible, but then realized that perhaps only 1% of our users would use that flexibility. Was the added complexity to accomodate that 1% worth it? We decided that, no, it wasn’t and were able to reduce our our content db tables from 3 to 1.

It also occured to me that it’s time we hype ‘health care 2.0: less is more!’. It’s that season again for me to re-apply for my health benefits. That always involves taking up a full evening to see what costs more, if I need to switch to a new clinic, calculage my benefits, decide if pretax accounts are better than tax credits, and then go through the 30 minute online registration. Yes, perhaps it’s a small price to pay for half-decent medical coverage. But yesterday, while listening to NPR, they were discussion the new Medicare Drug Discount plans. Those on Medicare now have to figure out the best option for them from *over 60* options. That is simply bad design.

So, a proposal for anyone rooting for universal health care. Maybe we should back down arguing about the social benefits, cost savings, etc. and instead focus on the need for better design. We need less complexity in our medical options.