Words on a page

Writers -- especially technical writers -- are supposed to make the complex easy to understand. Far too often, though, this doesn't happen. Take the subject of this blog entry at Signal vs. Noise.

The entry discusses the description of a conference called "Simplicity: The Art of Complexity." The description is far from simple. In fact, it's complex almost to the point of incoherence. Take this excerpt for example:

Simplicity begins, of course, with usability. The wish for user-friendly devices and programs is fervent and widespread.We will realize how justified it is when we inspect the plethora of shabbily designed user interfaces that hit the retail shelves in ever-shorter marketing cycles. So even as the writers of advertising- copy are busy ballyhooing the latest results of their company's purported fixation on user experience and user-centered design, the reality that we, the ones who have actually purchased these applications, are familiar with is, sadly, a different one. How very often we wish that industrial designers would pay more frequent courtesy calls on media artists and soak up a bit of the ambient inspiration during their visits!

I get the feeling that the entire description was either badly translated or written by a non-native speaker of English. If it was written by a native speaker, then that person should be sacked. Or, at least, sent to a remedial writing course.

Do you have any examples of complexity masquerading as simplicity? If so, leave a comment.