Why Explaining Things to a 10-Year-Old Makes You Better at Everything
Explain it to me like I'm ten
Tim Harford explores the surprising power of constraints in communication and design. From Randall Munroe's 'Up Goer Five' to Dr. Seuss's 'Green Eggs and Ham', he shows how artificial limits can spark creativity. He argues that the request to 'explain it like I'm 10' forces experts to simplify, and that designing for people with disabilities or women often leads to better products for everyone, citing examples from body armor to kitchen tools.
The challenges faced by users who are unusually small, large, old or young, or who have disabilities, are 'more extreme versions of the challenges that many other users face'.
- temporallobe
My favorite quote from Mark Twain is “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead”. Indeed, brevity and clarity actually take time and analysis. I find this to be very true when writing requirements or documentation. Some of the worst requirements I’ve read have been extremely wordy and unnecessarily over-technical or jargon-heavy when it could have been explained in plain language. As usual, it very much depends on the target audience.
- gerdesj
"puzzling than pellucid"
Pellucid might be cromullant but it ain't pervasive. I have never heard that word and I've heard quite a few. If I had to guess: it might be American (US) in situ wankery only, for the use of.
Might be wrong.
- FinnLobsien
I think constraints essentially force you to reevaluate the thing from base principles because you add a condition that’s incompatible with the default way of doing things.
I think this is also why hackathons work: You can’t afford the bikeshedding we often do to avoid the hard work because you need to ship something by a deadline 1/500th of most of your normal deadlines, so all of your effort is concentrated into what moves the core work forward.
What gets proven in hackathons often become features, products, or companies later - even if they’re things that would be ruled out in any planning meeting because they seem too hard/laborious.
- bariumbitmap
I'd say a lot of the value in "explain it to me like I'm ten" is just expending more time and effort in explaining something. People of all ages respond to engaging writing and clever analogies, and that tends to accompany the style of writing for a younger or broader audience.
- hny6epwg93
I disagree but respect the reasoning