Good software often feels like it is missing something. The missing something is usually a decision the designer already made, so you do not have to.
I notice this most in tools I use every day. The ones I recommend are rarely the ones with the longest settings page. They pick a default, show the work, and get out of the sentence I was trying to finish.
Noise is not only color and motion. It is also:
- a second way to do the same task
- a tooltip that explains a label that should have been clear
- a modal that asks you to confirm a click you just made
Quiet is a form of respect. It assumes you came here to do the thing, and that your attention is the scarce resource in the room.