Abstract
Yablonski restates Tesler’s Law for product designers: every application has irreducible complexity; the design choice is who carries it — user, developer, or platform — not whether complexity can be wished away.
Yablonski, J. (2020). Tesler’s Law. In Laws of UX: Design principles for creating better products and services. O’Reilly Media.
Key findings
- Conserved complexity — Inherent complexity cannot be deleted; it is moved between surfaces.
- Who pays — Defaults and automation shift load to the system/designer; exposed options shift load to the user.
Application
When you want a simple felt outcome (calm, one-tap harvest), put branching logic in the system — see Tesler’s Law.