KISS, an

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

for "Keep it simple, stupid!", is a

design A design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word ''design'' refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something ...

principle first noted by the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

in 1960. First seen partly in

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...

by at least 1938, KISS implies that

simplicity Simplicity is the state or quality of being wikt:simple, simple. Something easy to understand or explain seems simple, in contrast to something complicated. Alternatively, as Herbert A. Simon suggests, something is simple or Complexity, complex ...

should be a design goal. The phrase has been associated with aircraft engineer Kelly Johnson. The term "KISS principle" was in popular use by 1970. Variations on the phrase (usually as some

euphemism A euphemism ( ) is when an expression that could offend or imply something unpleasant is replaced with one that is agreeable or inoffensive. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the u ...

for the more churlish "stupid") include "keep it super simple", "keep it simple, silly", "keep it short and simple", "keep it short and sweet", "keep it simple and straightforward", "keep it small and simple", "keep it simple, soldier", "keep it simple, sailor", "keep it simple, sweetie", "keep it stupidly simple", or "keep it sweet and simple".

Origin

The acronym was reportedly coined by Kelly Johnson, lead engineer at the Lockheed

Skunk Works Skunk Works is an official pseudonym for Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP), formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. It is responsible for a number of aircraft designs, highly classified research and developme ...

(creators of the

Lockheed U-2 The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed the "''Dragon Lady''", is an American single-engine, high–altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since the 1950s. Designed for all- ...

and

SR-71 Blackbird The Lockheed SR-71 "Blackbird" is a retired long-range, high-altitude, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed and manufactured by the American aerospace company Lockheed Corporation. Its nicknames include " Blackbird" and ...

spy planes, among many others). However, the variant "Keep it Short and Simple" is attested from a 1938 issue of the ''

Minneapolis Star ''The Minnesota Star Tribune'', formerly the ''Minneapolis Star Tribune'', is an American daily newspaper based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As of 2023, it is Minnesota's largest newspaper and the seventh-largest in the United States by circula ...

''. While popular usage has transcribed it for decades as "Keep it simple, stupid", Johnson transcribed it simply as "Keep it simple stupid" (no comma), and this reading is still used by many authors.Ram B. Misra (2004), "Global IT Outsourcing: Metrics for Success of All Parties", ''Journal of Information Technology Cases and Applications'', volume 6 issue 3, page 21
Online version
Retrieved 2009-12-19. The principle is best exemplified by the story of Johnson handing a team of design engineers a handful of tools, with the challenge that the

jet aircraft A jet aircraft (or simply jet) is an aircraft (nearly always a fixed-wing aircraft) propelled by one or more jet engines. Whereas the engines in Propeller (aircraft), propeller-powered aircraft generally achieve their maximum efficiency at much ...

they were designing must be repairable by an average

mechanic A mechanic is a skilled tradesperson who uses tools to build, maintain, or repair machinery, especially engines. Formerly, the term meant any member of the handicraft trades, but by the early 20th century, it had come to mean one who works w ...

in the field under combat conditions with only these tools. Hence, the "stupid" refers to the relationship between the way things break and the sophistication available to repair them. The acronym has been used by many in the

U.S. military The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. U.S. federal law names six armed forces: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and the Coast Guard. Since 1949, all of the armed forces, except th ...

, especially the

and

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

, and in the field of

software development Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

Variants

The principle most probably finds its origins in similar

minimalist In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

concepts, such as: *

Occam's razor In philosophy, Occam's razor (also spelled Ockham's razor or Ocham's razor; ) is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. It is also known as the principle o ...

; * "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"; *

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

's "Brevity is the soul of wit"; *

Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect, academic, and interior designer. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. He is regarded as one of the pionee ...

's "

Less is more Less is more is a principle found in several traditions. Its basic meaning is to keep things simple, similar to the concept of minimalism. Its use in architecture emerges from the idea that simplicity and clarity lead to good design. The concept i ...

"; *

Bjarne Stroustrup Bjarne Stroustrup (; ; born 30 December 1950) is a Danish computer scientist, known for the development of the C++ programming language. He led the Large-scale Programming Research department at Bell Labs, served as a professor of computer sci ...

's "Make Simple Tasks Simple!"; *

Dr. Seuss Theodor Seuss Geisel ( ;"Seuss"
'' Johan Cruyff Hendrik Johannes Cruijff (25 April 1947 – 24 March 2016), internationally known as Johan Cruyff (), was a Dutch professional Association football, football player and Manager (association football), manager. Regarded as one of the greatest ...

's "Playing football is very simple but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is"; *

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry (29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ), was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator. Born in Lyon to an French nobility, aristocratic ...

's "It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away"; *

Colin Chapman Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman (19 May 1928 – 16 December 1982) was an English design engineer, inventor, and builder in the automotive industry, and founder of the sports car company Lotus Cars. Chapman founded Lotus in 1952 and initia ...

, the founder of

Lotus Cars Lotus Group (also known as Lotus Cars) is a British multinational automotive manufacturer of luxury sports cars and electric vehicles. Lotus Group is composed of three primary entities. Lotus Cars, a high-performance sports car company, is ba ...

, urged his designers to "Simplify, then add lightness"; * Attributed to

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

, although this may be an editor's paraphrase of a lecture he gave, "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler"; *

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...

's "~~Simplify~~, ~~Simplify~~, Simplify", which simplified

Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon sim ...

's quote "Simplify, simplify, simplify" for emphasis; * Northcote Parkinson, British academic and sometimes military officer and military critic, expressed this idea as "Parkinson's Third Law" (): "Expansion means complexity and complexity, decay; or to put it even more plainly—the more complex, the sooner dead";

Heath Robinson William Heath Robinson (31 May 1872 – 13 September 1944) was an English cartoonist, illustrator and artist who drew whimsically elaborate machines to achieve simple objectives. The earliest citation in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' f ...

contraptions and Rube Goldberg's machines, intentionally overly-complex solutions to simple tasks or problems, are humorous examples of "non-KISS" solutions.

Usage

In film animation

Master animator Richard Williams explains the KISS principle in his book ''

The Animator's Survival Kit ''The Animator's Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles, and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion, and Internet Animators'', or simply ''The Animator's Survival Kit'' is an instructional book by animator and director Ric ...

'', and

Disney's Nine Old Men Disney's Nine Old Men were a group of Walt Disney Productions' core animators, who worked at the studio from the 1920s to the 1980s. Some of the Nine Old Men also worked as directors, creating some of Disney's most popular animated movies from '' ...

write about it in '' Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life'', a considerable work of the genre. The problem faced is that inexperienced animators may "over-animate" in their works, that is, a character may move too much and do too much. Williams urges animators to "KISS".

In software development

Don't repeat yourself "Don't repeat yourself" (DRY) is a principle of software development aimed at reducing repetition of information which is likely to change, replacing it with abstractions that are less likely to change, or using data normalization which avoids r ...

(DRY) *

Minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

Unix philosophy The Unix philosophy, originated by Ken Thompson, is a set of cultural norms and philosophical approaches to Minimalism (computing), minimalist, Modularity (programming), modular software development. It is based on the experience of leading devel ...

Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an Open-source software, open source, rolling release Linux distribution. Arch Linux is kept up-to-date by regularly updating the individual pieces of software that it comprises. Arch Linux is intentionally minimal, and is meant ...

Slackware Linux Slackware is a Linux distribution created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993. Originally based on Softlanding Linux System (SLS), Slackware has been the basis for many other Linux distributions, most notably the first versions of SUSE Linux distribu ...

Chartjunk Chartjunk consists of all visual elements in charts and graphs that are not necessary to comprehend the information represented on the graph, or that distract the viewer from this information. Markings and visual elements can be called chartjunk ...

List of software development philosophies This is a list of approaches, styles, methodologies, and philosophies in software development and engineering. It also contains programming paradigms, software development methodologies, software development processes, and single practices, prin ...

Reduced instruction set computing In electronics and computer science, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer architecture designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a com ...

Rule of least power In programming, the rule of least power is a design principle that "suggests choosing the least powerful omputerlanguage suitable for a given purpose". Stated alternatively, given a choice among computer languages, classes of which range from ...

There's more than one way to do it Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was developed b ...

Worse is better ''Worse is better'' (also called the ''New Jersey style'') is a term conceived by Richard P. Gabriel in a 1989 essay to describe the dynamics of software acceptance. It refers to the argument that software quality does not necessarily increase w ...

(Less is more) *

You aren't gonna need it "You aren't gonna need it" (YAGNI) is a principle which arose from extreme programming (XP) that states a programmer should not add functionality until deemed necessary. Other forms of the phrase include "You aren't going to need it" (YAGTNI) and ...

(YAGNI)

In politics

* Keep It Simple Solutions, New Brunswick, a

minor Minor may refer to: Common meanings * Minor (law), a person not under the age of certain legal activities. * Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education Mathematics * Minor (graph theory), a relation of one graph to an ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

* Keep It Straight and Simple Party, a minor political party in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

In popular culture

In the Filipino

neo-noir Neo-noir is a film genre that adapts the visual style and themes of 1940s and 1950s American film noir for contemporary audiences, often with more graphic depictions of violence and sexuality. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the term ...

film ''Segurista'', KISS is invoked by Mrs Librada (played by

Liza Lorena Elizabeth Ann Jolene Luciano Winsett (born October 31, 1948) known professionally as Liza Lorena is a Filipina actress. She was a First Runner-Up in the Binibining Pilipinas pageant in 1966. Career Lorena was a flight stewardess (for PAL domest ...

) as an approach to selling

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect ...

. In the American version of ''The Office'', Michael Scott's advice to

Dwight Schrute Dwight Kurt Schrute III () is a character on the American television series ''The Office'' and is portrayed by American actor Rainn Wilson. Dwight is a salesman and assistant to Michael Scott, at the fictional paper distribution company Dunde ...

before making any decision is KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid).

References

External links

{{Design Adages Programming principles Simple living Design