Minimalist design: The thinking of the designer less is more

Article Description: less and more in the design.

Less is much is the mantra of many designers, it was first made by architectural master Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, is a kind of advocating simple, against the excessive decoration of the design concept. On this basis, continuous designers to improve the idea and a new interpretation, now it has become a design community, a basic theory and guidelines. Proponents of the theory argue that using minimalist design to remove unnecessary details can make products and users more profitable and produce better results.

In the traditional industry, there are many success stories about less is.

In 1979, Sony found that most users needed more than recordings to play, so they removed the recording capabilities of traditional recorders and even removed the external speakers that were deemed essential at the time. Then the rest is done in a small box and equipped with stereo headphones. This is the Walkman Walkman that is popular all over the world.

　　

1984, IBM on the basis of mouse and trackball, the simplification of the structure, the invention of the TrackPoint (small Red Hat), in the mobile device effectively replaced the mouse function, and solve the trajectory of the ball occupy too large space and so on shortcomings. Now TrackPoint has become the hallmark of the ThinkPad notebook, and similar designs have been applied to many other brands of laptops.

　　

In 2007, Apple streamlined the phone's buttons and even cut off the entire physical keyboard, launching the iphone. Led a revolution in smartphones around the world.

　　

These are the great successes of less's ideas. But in the actual design work, sometimes we can make some mistakes because we don't understand the thought deeply enough. Therefore, the specific design is whether the less or more, or should be based on the actual situation to decide. For example, here are some examples:

　　

One, Baidu commercial product of some place detail

In Baidu's promotion of Phoenix Nest This system, an account like the basic structure: Account > Promotion Program > Promotion Unit > Keywords. As shown in figure:

　　

In other words: An account can have a number of "promotional plans", a promotional program, there can be multiple "promotional units", a promotional unit, can have multiple "keywords." Now that PM needs a new feature, he offers a sketch like this:

　　

PM explained, "I need a locator." Allows users to choose to navigate to the "full account", a "promotional program", a "promotional unit" or a "keyword". A simple painting, the spirit of ' less is more ' principle, I put them together. ”

I looked puzzled and asked: "If I want to locate the full account, how to operate?" ”

PM replied: "The whole account, you do not choose anything, directly point to" view. ”

Me: "Halo ..."

This is a more typical example of streamlining the content on the interface but losing the user experience. Although this design is the most concise and most provincial space, but did not express the function here. Later, after discussion, it was changed to resemble the following:

　　

That is, add 4 options before the original Drop-down box and the input box. These 4 options, respectively, correspond to the 4 different levels that can be analyzed, and only after the hierarchy is selected will the specific selection control below that level appear below. Such changes, the user's task is divided into two steps: 1, choose their own to analyze which level. 2, select the specific Analysis object. Although the process has become longer, the number of clicks has increased, and the elements on the interface have become more complex, but the benefits are obvious, that is, the whole process has become simpler and smoother, and the user can operate with almost no thought. So more on the interface element instead of improving the actual user experience. It's like the one in Don T made me think: "It doesn't matter how many clicks you click, as long as each click is a clear and unambiguous choice." ”

　　

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