世界简单化之旅: 当简单成为解决之道

One of the keys to achieving empathy is feedback. The hospital gathers lots of it from patients and displays the data in patient experience 'dashboards.' For staff members eager to do well in comparison with their peers, 'Bedside Manner' has become a measurable attribute, not an intangible quality.
为病人着想的关键在于获得病人的反馈。这家医院收集了大量病人反馈，并将数据展示在一个有关病人体验的“控制面板”上。对于积极上进的员工来说，“临床礼仪”已成为一个可量化的品质。

If Cleveland Clinic appeals to the emotional side of our brains to provide a simple, soothing experience, the supermarket chain Trader Joe's tries to simplify rational choice. The company's long-standing goal is to reduce the grocery-shopping experience to a few manageable decisions. Trader Joe's figured out that trying to give people everything is a lousy business model: It overwhelms customers, clutters stores and undermines the shopping experience, causing some customers to default to 'no' since they can't make up their minds. On top of that, it is inefficient for handling inventory.
如果说克里夫兰医疗中心提供的简单、令人放松的体验满足了我们的感性需求，超市连锁Trader Joe's的尝试则简化了我们的理性选择。这家公司的长期目标是将杂货店的购物体验简化为几个可以管理的决定。Trader Joe's发现，努力向人们提供所有的商品是一种糟糕的商业模式，这会让客户难以抉择，导致商店拥堵，破坏购物体验，一些客户会自动拒绝购买任何东西，因为他们无法作出决定。最重要的是，无法有效地控制库存。

Trader Joe's offers many fewer products than other supermarkets (about 4,000 items instead of 40,000, according to Peter Sealey of the Sausalito Group). Limiting variety doesn't mean bland selections, however; the company does extensive research on its customer base to make smart choices on behalf of the people who shop there, mixing in some exotic food choices and using playful, quirky packaging. Shoppers are thus spared the aggravation of having to sort through dozens of options for jam or mustard or frozen foods.
Trader Joe's提供的产品比其他超市要少（Sausalito Group的彼得•希利(Peter Sealey)称，它只提供大约4,000种商品，而不是4万种）。不过，限制产品种类并不意味着店内的产品是枯燥乏味的。这家公司对客户进行了广泛研究，从而代表消费者作出了聪明了选择。这家商店购进了一些外国食品，店内商品采用好玩、奇特的包装。购物者因此不必辛苦地从几十种果酱、芥末或速冻食品中作出选择。

Does it work? The chain, which has about 350 stores in the U.S., sells an estimated $1,750 in merchandise per square foot, according to Fortune magazine in 2010, more than double the sales generated per square foot by Whole Foods Market.
这么做行得通吗？据2010年的《财富》(Fortune)杂志称，这家连锁店在美国大约有350家门店，平均每平方英尺（约0.09平方米）的店面带来的销售额大约为1,750美元（约合1万人民币），比全食有机食品连锁店(Whole Foods Market)每平方英尺的销售额的两倍还多。

Sometimes simplicity can be a matter of life and death. A decade ago, worried that confusing prescription labels threatened the health of her grandparents, Deborah Adler decided to do something about it. A graphic designer, she took on this challenge for her master's thesis. Rearranging the small type on the typical prescription label, Ms. Adler put the information in a logical order, giving prominence to the things that people most need to know at the moment they are reaching for their medicine. She divided the label into two parts, separated by a thick black line, and placed the critical information, such as the name and dosage of the medication, at the top, with everything else relegated to the bottom.
有时候，简单化有着生死攸关的重要性。10年前，由于担心令人困惑的药品标签可能会耽误祖父的治疗，德博拉•阿德勒(Deborah Adler)决定做些什么。作为图像设计师，她在硕士论文中讨论了这个难题。阿德勒重新排列了药品标签上的小字，以一种有逻辑的顺序安排标签上的信息，突出显示人们在拿到药品时最想知道的信息。她把标签分成由一条粗黑线分隔的两部分，并把药物名称和用量等重要信息放在黑线上端，其他的信息则放在下面。

Ms. Adler next considered the shape of the bottles. The wraparound labels on conventional round bottles were difficult to read, so she designed a flat tube-shaped container that stood upright on its cap, with plenty of room for a large, flat label that could be read easily at a glance. Also, by color-coding the bottles, she made it possible for family members to distinguish among their individual medications. Her simpler, clearer drug packaging has been adopted by Target pharmacies nationwide.
阿德勒接下来考虑了药瓶的形状。传统圆形瓶子上的标签难以阅读，因此她设计了一个扁平管状容器，有足够的空间可以平贴一张标签，这样一来标签的内容就一目了然了。此外，她还在瓶身上加了彩色代码，家庭成员可区分他们各自的药物。她的更简单、清晰的药品包装已被全国的Target药房采用。

Smart companies test product information by finding out how customers perceive it and how much of it the customers actually comprehend. Measuring perception alone can be misleading because people are often reluctant to confess their confusion. They view it as a personal failing rather than as a flaw in the information. Measuring their ability to perform tasks based on the information is a more reliable indicator of its clarity and precision.
聪明的企业往往通过调查客户对产品信息的理解，以及能理解到什么程度来测试产品信息是否足够简单。单独评估客户的理解程度可能产生误差，因为人们通常不愿意承认自己的疑惑。他们认为这是自己的失败，而不是信息表达的缺陷。客户根据信息执行任务的能力才是更可靠的指标，以此可衡量产品信息表达的清晰度和准确度。

This type of testing can be conducted quickly and cheaply with online panels of consumers. For example, testing a notice from the Internal Revenue Service (a current client of ours), a taxpayer might be asked how much they would pay in penalties and interest if they missed a deadline, revealing their actual understanding of the consequences of their actions, not just their impression of the tone and clarity of the notice. Similarly, patients can be asked what dosage of medication to take and when so that we don't have to guess whether they truly understand the package directions.
由于网络上有大量消费者资源，这种测试可以非常便捷，又无需花很多钱。例如，如果要测试美国国税局(Internal Revenue Service)（目前是我们的客户）的一则通知，纳税人可能需要回答，如果错过最后期限他们需要支付多少罚金和利息，从中就可以看出他们对行动的后果的真实理解，而不光是了解到他们对信息的大致印象。同样，病人可能会被问到用药的计量以及用药时间，这样我们就不需要猜测他们是否真正理解了包装上的说明。

Simplicity is slowly catching on as a standard. The Pew Charitable Trust, for instance, is trying to develop simplified model documents on financial topics such as banking fees, about which there is widespread and costly confusion. The model form that Pew put forward last year has been voluntarily adopted by several of the nation's largest banks─a very encouraging sign.
简单正在慢慢成为一种标准。例如，皮尤慈善信托基金会(Pew Charitable Trust)正在努力开发简化版本的金融文件，比如银行费用，人们对银行费用存在广泛的困惑，而这种困惑的代价相当高昂。美国的几家大型银行主动采用了皮尤慈善信托基金会去年推出的模板，这是一个令人振奋的信号。

Similarly, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is working its way through the disclosures related to major consumer financial transactions (student loans, home mortgages, payday lending) with an eye to making it easier for borrowers to do comparison shopping. Local governments such as New York City are simplifying residents' interactions with the bureaucracy through systems such as a 311 hotline for complaints and urgent matters. And social media is allowing all of us to get closer to companies and institutions and to make known our concerns and compliments.
同样，消费者金融保护局(Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)正在研究与主要的消费者金融交易有关的信息公开（学生贷款、住房抵押贷款、发薪日借贷），目标是使借款者更容易比较消费。通过311投诉和紧急事务热线等系统，纽约等地的地方政府正在简化消费者与金融保护局之间的互动。社交媒体也正在使人们与企业机构间建立更密切的关系，使人们的担忧和好评能被更好地了解。

What do we still need to simplify? For ordinary personal and commercial transactions, we need brief online contracts with interactive features explaining key words, concepts and computations. We need personal health records that can be easily used and updated by all health-care providers. We need summaries of our home and auto insurance that clearly explain how we will be reimbursed when the next storm hits; clear, one-page hospital bills that will allow us to recognize each element in the care that we receive; and a simplified tax code that will eliminate the need for costly tax return preparation by professionals.
我们还需要简化什么？对于普通的人事和商业交易来说，我们需要简洁的网络合同，通过互动手段解释一些关键词、概念和计算方法；我们需要个人健康记录，任何医疗保健服务提供者都能轻松使用和更新；我们需要家庭和汽车保险概要，它能清楚解释下一次风暴来袭时我们将如何获得补偿；我们需要医院仅一页纸长的单据，清晰告知我们享受到了哪些医疗服务；另外还需要一个简化的免税代码，从而使专业人员无需准备高成本的纳税申报单。

For any modification or addition to its pristine home page, Google GOOG -1.06% has a famous zero-based approach, which is meant to avoid creeping complexity. The company requires extensive justification for any new visual element, assigning 'points' for each change in type style, size or color. The goal is the fewest number of points because, as the company says, 'More points = less simplicity.' Other institutions would do well to adopt a similar approach for evaluating new services, communications and products.
谷歌(Google)采用了一种著名的零基础法来决定是否对其原始主页进行修改或补充，这种方法旨在避免使页面复杂化。公司要求对任何新的可视元素进行广泛论证，为版式风格、尺寸和颜色上的每一个变化打分。谷歌的目标是让变化的总分最少，该公司说，这是因为分数越高，页面越不简洁。其他机构也可采取类似的方法来评估新的服务、沟通和产品。

Simplicity may sound like a narrow standard, but it can help companies, governments and every other sort of organization winnow down unnecessary choices and clarify their messages to consumers, clients and citizens. We may not quite be able to re-create Thoreau's calm life on Walden Pond, but it is always possible to drive improvement by simplifying.
简单化可能听起来是一个不易达到的标准，但它能帮助公司政府和各种机构剔除不必要的产品和服务，使消费者、客户和市民获得更清楚的信息。我们也许不能够复制梭罗在瓦尔登湖的宁静生活，但是我们永远可以通过化繁为简来改善自己的生活。