Design AtlasProposed by Larry Tesler, a computer scientist at Xerox PARC and later Apple — also known for championing modeless interfaces, which shares the same underlying idea. Every application carries an irreducible amount of complexity; the only question is who absorbs it.
When the system auto-detects timezone and date format, users see none of it — but a developer still wrote that detection logic somewhere. When the system does nothing, the user picks a timezone from a dropdown by hand. The complexity didn't disappear; it changed hands.
In the demo, A hands the user six raw fields; B has the system infer four of the same six, leaving the user only two. The filled portion of the bar (user's share) differs, but the total bar length (total complexity) stays the same.
When to use
When designing a settings screen, consciously choose who absorbs each bit of complexity — check whether it lands on the user simply because building the smart default was harder.