KISS principle.html



K.I.S.S. redirects here.

See also: WP:KISS. For other uses, see Kiss (disambiguation).

The KISS principle (backronymed^{citation needed} to "Keep It Simple, Stupid") states that design simplicity should be a key goal and unnecessary complexity avoided. It serves as a useful principle in a wide array of disciplines, such as software development, animation, journalism, photography, engineering, and strategic planning. Common variants of the acronym include: "Keep It Sweet & Simple", "Keep It Short & Simple", and "Keep It Super-Simple".

Related concepts

The principle is somewhat similar to Occam's razor, and Albert Einstein's maxim that "everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."¹, 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, as Lotus founder, 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".

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 their "Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life" book 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

• You Ain't Gonna Need It (YAGNI)
• Don't repeat yourself
• Corner case
• Principles of War
• Kitchen sink syndrome
• Rube Goldberg
• Heath Robinson
• Unix philosophy
• Occam's razor
• New Jersey style

References