Simple Is Survival Now

There’s a reason physical products are getting simpler. It’s not just a trend. It’s a response to how people actually use things now.

The days of designing for a single use case, in a perfectly controlled setting, are over. People multitask. Spaces are shared. Expectations are high. And attention spans are short.

In that kind of world, a product doesn’t have time to explain itself. It has to make sense immediately.

That means fewer assumptions. Fewer buried functions. Fewer design decisions that only work when someone reads the manual.

You see it in the details. On XB10, we reworked the port layout and labeling so they’re obvious without needing a reference guide. We simplified the lighting behavior to be glanceable from across the room. It wasn’t about stripping things back for the sake of minimalism; it was about meeting people where they are.

Designing for today means designing for friction. For mess. For fast installs, short training, shared ownership, constant switching.

Simple isn’t lazy. Simple takes work. It takes restraint. It takes knowing exactly what matters and stripping away the rest.

The products that stick are the ones that earn their place. The ones that fit into real workflows, real homes, real hands.

Because out in the world, good design doesn’t shout. It just works.