The iPhone made it a reality.

How so? What made it so ground-breaking? Most of its functions were not revolutionary on paper. Plenty of devices had touch screens. Many let you send emails, listen to music, and browse the web to some extent.

The iPhone was different because of the way that it did things. Jony Ive and his team of designers understood that technically possible isn’t enough. It has to work well, be easy to use, and fit within the way we understand the world.

In doing this, they took complicated concepts and simplified them. Not easy to do, but it made all the difference. They launched a platform that generated billions of dollars, created millions of jobs, and put the potential for a world-class education into every human hand.

Many have followed, but it began with the iPhone. Through the power of design, Apple gave power to the people.

Others are doing it too:

What if politicians did the same thing? What if our government held itself to the same high standards of simplicity, beauty, and humanity?

Pre-iPhone, it was hard to imagine how primitive smartphones were. We thought they worked pretty well. It was hard to fathom how much they were about to improve.

Similarly, it’s hard to understand how primitive government is today.

It’s hard to see it could be trusted over loathed, inspired over dull, and beautiful over careless. It could treat citizens like human beings, and organize our great minds to fight the common challenges of mankind instead of eachother.

It’s hard to see, but government could be a true reflection of our own humanity.

Incorporating design into government will help us achieve that. Here are some guidelines to move us along:

Simplicity.

Simplify for better execution.

Governing means working together. You inspire a law, Congress passes it, and someone else enforces it. It requires communication between thousands of people.

Simple ideas are easier to communicate. Which means they’re easier to understand. Which means they’re easier to execute. It’s true of everything, including government. Confusing policy exponentially increases the costs of enforcing it.

Key is that so much of what we need doesn’t require more. It requires a better approach. Too often, we keep adding until the cost / benefit curve flattens out. Or turns negative. That’s when we need to stop.

Simplicity, not confusion, will lead to the results we all want.

Strengthen democracy through clarity.

Democracy is the idea that government works better when people hold it accountable. That’s true, but only when they know what the hell is going on.

Inches-thick bills that politicians don’t even understand are routine. So is expanding an idea into three paragraphs when it only requires one sentence. It might seem more irritating than destructive, but it’s having serious long-term effects on our democracy. It’s a vicious cycle of confusion that slowly gets worse.

Everyone should be able to understand government — whether they’re nine or ninety — and that responsibility is on politicians as much as the people.

Restore effectiveness by finding what’s essential.

Designers strip concepts down to their most essential parts. That’s hard, because we all get attached to our own ideas. We hate to admit when they’re not as good as we think. But when we do, something magical happens: we’re left with what actually drives success.

It’s summed up in the 80/20 rule, which says that eighty percent of results come from twenty percent of the efforts. When you know where to focus, you can trim the fat and perfect the core. That’s almost always better than adding more.

Beauty.

Appreciate the beauty in things working well.

Elegant yet effective solutions are beautiful. That’s no accident. We’ve evolved to appreciate beauty because it means things are working well. Thriving flowers are beautiful. We’re attracted to beautiful people because it says they’re strong and healthy.

It’s the same with policy. Words on a page that can change how millions of people treat eachother for the better: that’s beautiful.

Like paint to a painter, policy is the art form of the legislator. Though the cooperation required in government makes it hard, politicians should hold their work to these standards. Trying alone will move us forward.

Value both form and function.

Some dismiss beauty as superficial, and it’s true that form without function cannot last. But when something is beautiful both inside and out, its parts synergize in a powerful way.

This makes sense. The care required to make something beautiful in function carries over to the details of its form.

In fact, they’re one in the same. The look of an interface dramatically impacts how we use it. The shape of a room affects how we interact inside of it. The layout of a document changes what we take away from it. The examples are endless, and too often overlooked.

Striving for beauty in both function and form will lead us to greater heights than we ever thought possible.

Elevate regard through design.

A company’s horrible website hurts their chances of getting your business. A doctor’s filthy waiting room gives you second thoughts about putting your health in their hands. A chaotic restaurant stresses you out too much to enjoy your meal.

It’s also true of government. When a website makes no sense, a waiting room is hellish, and systems are obviously inefficient, we resent it.

Through design and tone, government communicates it’s consideration of the people — or lack thereof. And when government cares about people, people care about government. That begins a feedback loop of respect. Which is necessary for progress.

Humanity.

Make people’s lives better.

We hear about interest rates and employment figures every day. These numbers are important and help us make better decisions, but they shouldn’t obscure the true purpose of government: to make people’s lives better.

Our leaders should connect everything back to the people they truly serve: a family sitting around the dinner table, a couple on their first date, or a passionate kid starting a company. They should ask themselves before every decision: is this helping them in their pursuit of happiness?

If not, it’s only getting in the way.

Understand reality.

It’s easy to get lost in hypotheticals. You can end up with something that works well in theory but terribly in reality. Every great design team faces this.

They deal with it in two ways:

First, they know their users incredibly well. What their lives are like and what their dreams are. Only then can they truly help them.

Second, they constantly test their ideas in the real world, making sure they haven’t gone down a design rabbit hole without noticing. Even the greatest designers overestimate how good their ideas are. Testing them provides a harsh but necessary reality check.

Politicians must do exactly the same thing.

Treat people well.

Think of your worst customer service experience.

You probably had a long wait, navigated complicated menus, and dealt with a careless representative. The entire ordeal felt disorganized and inconsiderate.

Now think of the best. You didn’t suffer through annoying menus, and you spoke to someone who had a genuine sense of care.

Government fails miserably at this. It’s worse than dealing with the cable company.

Instead, its tone from president to postman should be like great customer service. Like it’s here to help us do great things and live good lives — not get in our way.

In return, it would get the goodwill that it needs to tackle our greatest challenges.