Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Leonardo Da Vinci

If I can’t picture it, I can’t understand it.

Albert Einstein

Confusion and clutter are the failure of design, not the attributes of information.

Edward Tufte

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

Steve Jobs

What a useful thing a pocket-map is!” I remarked. “That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation,” said Mein Herr, “map-making. But we’ve carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?” “About six inches to the mile.” “Only six inches!” exclaimed Mein Herr. “We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!” “Have you used it much?” I enquired. “It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.

Carroll, L., Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (Macmillan and Co, London, 1893)