KISS principle

KISS, an acronym for "Keep it simple, stupid!", is a design principle noted by the U.S. Navy in 1960. First seen partly in American English by at least 1938, the KISS principle states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated; therefore, simplicity should be a key goal in design, and unnecessary complexity should be avoided. The phrase has been associated with aircraft engineer Kelly Johnson. The term "KISS principle" was in popular use by 1970. Variations on the phrase (usually as some euphemism for the more churlish "stupid") include "keep it super simple", "keep it simple, silly", "keep it short and simple", "keep it short and sweet", "keep it simple and straightforward", "keep it small and simple", "keep it simple, soldier", "keep it simple, sailor", "keep it simple, sweetie", "keep it stupidly simple", or "keep it sweet and simple". The acronym was reportedly 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). However, the variant "Keep it Short and Simple" is attested from a 1938 issue of the Minneapolis Star. While popular usage has transcribed it for decades as "Keep it simple, stupid", Johnson transcribed it simply as "Keep it simple stupid" (no comma), and this reading is still used by many authors. The principle is best exemplified by the story of 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 repair them. The acronym has been used by many in the U.S. military, especially the U.S. Navy and United States Air Force, and in the field of software development.

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Related concepts (4)

Worse is better

Worse is better (also called the New Jersey style) is a term conceived by Richard P. Gabriel in a 1989 essay to describe the dynamics of software acceptance. It refers to the argument that software quality does not necessarily increase with functionality: that there is a point where less functionality ("worse") is a preferable option ("better") in terms of practicality and usability. Software that is limited, but simple to use, may be more appealing to the user and market than the reverse.

KISS principle

Minimalism (computing)

In computing, minimalism refers to the application of minimalist philosophies and principles in the design and use of hardware and software. Minimalism, in this sense, means designing systems that use the least hardware and software resources possible. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, programmers worked within the confines of relatively expensive and limited resources of common platforms. Eight or sixteen kilobytes of RAM was common; 64 kilobytes was considered a vast amount and was the entire address space accessible to the 8-bit CPUs predominant during the earliest generations of personal computers.