Reduce apparent complexity by making objects smaller than expected (shrink), concealing the non-essential behind panels or menus (hide), and signaling quality or capability through added cues like weight or finish (embody). The three moves work together: hiding needs a trigger to reveal, and shrinking needs embodiment so the small thing still reads as valuable.
People experience something as simpler primarily when it wastes less of their time, so reducing waiting (through speed) or hiding the wait (through progress feedback and pleasant distraction) directly increases perceived simplicity. Simplicity is therefore partly a matter of managing attention during delay, not only of reducing the thing itself.
Simplicity is only meaningful in contrast to surrounding complexity: you notice and value the simple because something nearby is complex, and vice versa. The goal is not to eliminate complexity but to tune the ratio so the two heighten each other's effect.
When elements cannot be removed, grouping them into a smaller number of meaningful categories lowers felt complexity even though the total count is unchanged. The mind tracks the number of groups, not the number of items, so arrangement can substitute for subtraction.
Maeda cites Apple's iPod shuffle, which omitted a display entirely and relied on randomized playback, as evidence that removing an expected feature can increase appeal rather than cripple the product. The deliberate absence of control and information became the selling point, showing that what is left out can define a design.