If it was a trade off between designing for purpose or designing for simplicity, what would you choose? It is a hard question because there are many other variables that come into play, including timeline, requirements, and what type of project this is. So the real answer is that it depends. But let’s pretend for a second that you had to choose. On the one hand you have some core purpose, like trust, delight, luxury, nostalgia, etc., that caused the page to be more complex. On the other hand you can make the page simple, easy to read and minimizes cognitive load, but not achieving any other feeling of purpose. Which direction would you lean? Since this is super hypothetical, I will always advocate designing for purpose. Purpose is what connects people to products for life, and drives application growth. It is what makes a product act one way for new users and a completely different way for advanced users. It is the defining factor that drives so many people to complete a purchase, make a decision, act, think, and feel a certain way. But there is a catch … It. Is. Hard.
Purpose requires a ton of upfront work. This includes researching users -- how they feel and what makes them tick --, iterating and failing, touching an end-to-end experience, and more. Understanding trust, for example, is no small fete, and it is even harder because establishing trust is different for every user, creating infinite types of trust. This is why simplicity becomes much more realistic for many designers on fast moving project teams. Simplicity is not easy to achieve, but it is way easier than designing towards a specific purpose, taking way less time and resources to accomplish. In my experience, this is what separates good project managers, developers, designers, and teams from bad ones. Good ones, in the right circumstance, will try to achieve some greater outcome than just making an experience mindlessly simple.
Again, this is a total theory, in-a-vacuum type of question, but it is a fundamental question that every designer needs to be able to answer for themselves. Having your own understanding will help you make design decisions, drive impact, and communicate your designs to your company.
