It used to be said that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. Today she’s a liberal who tried to pay a babysitter without breaking the law. It is admirable that Democrats try to tackle society’s thorniest problems with the often unwieldy tools of government, but that is not an excuse for programs that are too complex for their own good.

The truth is that good public policy can actually be elegant and simple to understand, even when the social problem that it’s addressing is complex. Social Security, Medicare, bans on indoor smoking, the “do not call” list (when it worked) and public libraries are examples of government solutions that are easy to understand and to benefit from.

Avoidance of complexity and minimizing choices are hallmarks of good design, as we have learned from the technological revolution in user interfaces. The age of impossible-to-use computers and incomprehensible TV remote controls has given way to the sleek and intuitive interfaces offered by pioneers like Steve Jobs of Apple. What progressives most need now is not more brains, but better policy designers.

One major obstacle to simple, effective public policy is people like me — the expert class. Many of us are in denial, seeing complexity as a necessary evil, an unavoidable feature of answers to hard problems, even a technocratic badge of honor. We criticize conservatives for relying on simplistic slogans like “cut taxes” and “drill, baby, drill” instead of nuanced, empirically informed assessments of economic growth and environmental management.

Progressives are right to consider expertise essential to good policymaking. But policy experts are rarely good at interface design, for we have a bad habit of assuming that people have unlimited time and attention and that to respect them means offering complete transparency and a multiplicity of choices. Real respect for the public involves appreciating what the public actually wants and needs. The reality is that most Americans are short on time and attention and already swamped by millions of daily tasks and decisions. They would prefer that the government solve problems for them — not create more work for them.