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Unless you have been living under a soft, loamy tree root for the last few years, you may have noticed that software look and feel has undergone substantial change. A lot of this is attributable to what has come to be known as “minimalist” design. I’m going to explain what that is, and what it’s not. 

What is Minimalist Design?

First and foremost, it’s design that is easy to understand, because it doesn’t take a lot of work to get there. You’re not overwhelmed by unnecessary embellishments – no extra stuff competing for your attention. Nothing to prevent you from absorbing the essential message: here’s what you are looking at, and here’s what you can do with it. 

What is it not?

Minimalism is not simplicity only for the sake of simplicity. It’s not boredom by design – just the opposite! The idea is not to make everything so alike, so mundane, or so flavorless that it all just blends together. That would defeat its purpose because, as I stated above, it is a way to communicate more effectively. A boring layout in which everything looks the same does not give you any cues as to what’s important, or what you can do with what’s there. The minimalist designer subtracts only what he must to achieve clear communication, and nothing more. 

This screen from Verizon Wireless functions very well when it comes to communicating clearly and simply. The information is presented in a way that is not overly monotonous.

Why do designers use Minimalist Design?

Donald Judd, Untitled, 1980

Minimalism is not a new idea. As an art movement, it began in the 1950s, but its roots are older, in the BauHaus and Constructivist  movements of the early 20th century. It has gone in and out of vogue, but it has become firmly rooted in contemporary UX design for very good reasons. 

First, Minimalism lends itself to software and web interfaces due to the rise of mobile devices like smart phones and tablets. Some time between 2008 and 2010, it became obvious that designing web pages on a flexible grid, with auto-resizing images and text blocks, saved web designers from having to create separate pages for each type of device. Instead, they could design for one device and let things automatically rearrange themselves on screen, creating a consistent experience for users across all device types. This imposed a new set of rules that demanded simpler design in order to work. Images had to be sized so that they could blow up big but also shrink smaller and still be readable. The same with graphics and text – the latter also being able to be resized on an individual basis, using accessibility options available on most devices. 

But beyond that, people were, for the first time, choosing to use smaller screens to surf the web. This changed things in more subtle ways. Information had to be organized in such a way that the smaller real estate didn’t confuse the person reading it by cutting off or shrinking down information so that it was unreadable. This meant less information on the screen, not just in web pages, but also in apps written for mobile phones. (Coming soon: the Fundamentals of Progressive Disclosure.)
Minimalist design solves this problem by keeping things simple. The fewer elements on the screen, the more choices we have for presenting information.

The art of subtraction

I know you haven’t really been sleeping away the last couple of years in that soft loam, so chances are good that you have heard of Internet sensation Marie Kondo and her approach to organization. A big component of her philosophy is reducing the amount of stuff you have to organize. This is a perfect analogy for minimalist design. But where Kondo asks, “does this thing bring you joy?” the question for the designer is a little different: does this thing aid communication? In other words, does this thing help the user understand the information, and what can be done with it?
I may be making this question seem easier to answer than it really is. For instance, a dividing line may be an extra element, but it might mean not having to increase the size of some header text, because the line provides the emphasis that size and styling might otherwise impart: 
Something not unexpected happens when you remove elements from your layout: white space. If you have ever been driven by your client to present too much information on a screen, you may be carrying some baggage that you need to go Kondo on: the impulse to fill every bit of space with boxes and labels. White space is necessary to good design. It helps to emphasize some information by isolating it; it gives the user’s eye a rest to differentiate between different data points; and perhaps most importantly, it gives a more professional look and feel to the app.

How to take Minimalist Design too far

It would be easy to misunderstand, with all this talk about white space, some fundamental things about minimalist design. First of all, “white space” does not necessarily mean white space. It really only means empty space, but few designers will use that term because it seems to carry a negative connotation. If your background is a light grey, or black, or hot pink, the concept is the same. I mention this because I have noticed a definite trend over the last decade among designers who overdo it with white backgrounds, grey type, and a severe lack of color. While there’s nothing wrong with each of these things on its own, you don’t have to impose such austere rules on your design. Color is another tool in your toolbox, and as long as you don’t overuse it, it’s great for differentiating between objects, states, and conditions. 
How can you use color without overusing it? The questions are the same as before – does this use of color aid communication? We like to use color at Alchemy Group to differentiate between “chrome” – navigation elements, search pills, record and found set info – and the client’s data. If it’s in the contrasting bar, it’s chrome, otherwise, it’s client data. This helps to simplify things, even when it’s necessary to present a lot of data on one screen.

Conclusion

Achieving minimalist design is not easy, but there is a lot to gain by doing so. Like Konmari, it requires a degree of self-examination as well as a fair amount of experimentation. When in doubt, remember this popular axiom: communicate, don’t decorate.