IO is now SIMPLICITY (as of summer 2004).

Since its earliest days, the Media Lab's Information Organized (IO) consortium (originally News in the Future) pioneered the use of digital technology to present and shape information so that it is both more accessible and more meaningful. It was used to create the field of personal publishing, and has expanded over the years to include metadata and common sense as core aspects of digital information handling.

Now IO researchers are joining other colleagues throughout the Media Lab to make another significant breakthrough: to initiate a major research focus on simplicity, a design-oriented program aimed at redefining our relationship with technology in our daily lives. This goes well beyond removing buttons, slimming down screens, and shrinking interfaces to fit into the palms of our hands. It is a radical reexamination of ways to break free from the intimidating complexity of today's technology and the frustration of information overload. It is a focus on making our relationship with technology intellectually gratifying and enjoyable.

While a certain percentage of the population will also be "gadget geeks" who cannot get enough of complexity and functionality in any electronic device, most people yearn for a DVD player whose programming is intuitive, an online newspaper that can deliver the stories you want in a quick and easy-to-read format, or a cell phone whose instruction book has fewer than 100 pages. We want our devices to understand what we want, and to give them to us in the easiest and most easy-to-understand way.

Through simplicity, Media Lab sponsors will join with Lab researchers to once again "create the future"—this time a future where technology consistently makes sense, fulfills the soul, and keeps us coming back for more.

To learn more about simplicity, please contact Professor John Maeda (maeda(at)media.mit.edu).