There is a lot of software that claims to have the "minimalist UI", but they just end up to hide most of the features to show that their interface is minimalist and the software is simple.
The key to minimalism isn’t making the interface simple per se. It’s about making it as simple as it needs to be.
There are some of the software with the minimalist interface that actually work.
Instagram is one of the biggest social media platforms now. Last year, after they underwent the design change, the user experience got so much smoother and easier.
Now when you scroll your newsfeed on Instagram, you will focus on the content uploaded rather than other clutters in design.
If you blog everyday, you must know about Medium. One of the best thing with Medium is, you can actually focus on your readings rather than the fancy design or colorful photos that can easily distract you.
Most recently redesigned last October, the Medium app lets you personalise what kind of blog posts you receive in your feed, and offers a selection of ‘Top Stories’ and 'Editors’ picks' on its homepage. But where it really comes into its own is in the reading experience, which is elegantly and artfully designed for relaxed and enjoyable reading.
Pinterest is a great source of beautiful and inspirational photos for you. They have photos to set up as cards. You can create organization and flow in a design. Cards also rely on established user behavior patterns, making UI easy to use.
Every element lives in a container that relates to a specific action, such as activating a link, filing out a form, or sharing the link.
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Besides from all of the famous apps, I personally have some SaaS platform with the award-winning UI. For example, for productivity apps, we have Quire and Notion.
What's your favorite app?
Latest comments (28)
There's a difference between the Morlocks and Eloi at the keyboard.
Minimalist UI does not always mean minimalist UX.
If the UI achieves its minimalism by making me click more, I'm out. OUT I say!
You lost me at 'Medium'
I'm not entirely dismissing your point though, it's just all the popups and the ads while trying to focus on what I'm reading
I should add that minimalizm should be accompanied with speed. A minimalist interface means nothing if it is not instant. I mean, if you make me wait so long, then give me more or just stop it. Recently some of my favorite minimal products became so slow to be useful. Windows opens faster than Gmail and Facebook, which is insane for text content. On the other side, Dev.to is a very good mention I saw in an above comment that matches speed and minimalism in such a cool way.
The trick is starting minimalist, and then staying minimalist in a rapidly changing and expanding application.
I personally feel that having a minimal UI in a complex environment still counts. Your UI can focus on that user's personal workflow based on their role. If they want more power, they can tailor that view. So I do in fact hide things to keep the guise of minimalist.
This is in an Enterprise environment though, so different design needs than a Pinterest etc.
If the UI is content-driven, I'm a lot more forgiving as an end-user. Just give me a decent recent experience without distractions and I'll consume that content voraciously.
If the UI is meant to be functional - if I'm using it, it needs to have a lot more UX engineering put into it, and it needs to balance the idea of being fresh with keeping things consistent over time.
I believe that there is no such thing as minimal UI. Anything that distracts, lacks function, conflicts with the design, or obstructs a user is simply BAD UI. Sure, you can make your app vapid with white space, but that doesn't really equate to a minimal experience. Instagram and Pinterest possess a great deal of visual garbage and user-unfriendly design (and usually on purpose).
Well made minimal ui are pure delight.
I feel. like medium was such of poor example for ui minimalism, unless is the mobile app but I don't use it so I wouldn't know but the site is not minimalist whatsoever.
I strongly prefer keeping it all as minimal as possible.
As you mentioned, something minimalistic doesn't mean taking away a lot of features, but just using the features that are really needed. So I really like Google Keep, because everything is straight to the point, so you don't get distracted by things unnecessary.
Been using keep for ages, is my main note taking app, checklist app, planning, etc. Is just great. I love it so much that I'm thinking about making a clone given that Google likes to kills services from time to time.