Here’s a passage from the book Desiging Visual Interfaces that I’m currently reading. This book is from 1995 and still today most designers seem not to understand and apply these concepts.

Elegance derives from latin “eligere” meaning to “choose out” or “select carefully”.

Elegant solutions reveal an intimate understanding of the problem and an ability to ensure that its essence is grasped by the consumers as well.

Simplicity plays a central role in all timeless designs. The most powerful designs are always the result of a continuous process of simplification and refinement. Before you do anything else to improve the quality of a design, make sure you have reduced its formal and conceptual elements to the absolute minimum. The benefits of simplicity are functional as well as aesthetic in nature.

• Approachability: Product support immediate use or invite further exploration.
• Recognizability: Presenting less visual information to the viewer makes a design more easily assimilated, understood and remembered.
• Immediacy: Simple designs have greater impact than complex designs because they can be immediately recognized and understood with a minimum of conscious effort.
• Usability: Improving the approachability and memorability of a product necessarily enhances usability as well. Simple designs that eliminate unnecessary variation or detail make the variation that remains more prominent and informative.