Have you ever heard the saying, “Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication?” Well, it’s not just a quote but a true and proven fact. And, even when it comes to an application, it is the look of it that attracts the users. Yes, it is the intuitive design of the app that drives the users. And, guess what, not every good look is going to attract them because they look what users prefer nowadays is the simplified user interface along with basic functionalities.
Well, are you aware of the word minimalistic design? Typically, the term minimalistic design arises from the term Minimalism, which is said to be an art movement that began way back, i.e., post World War II. In the easy and common language, it is a concise, clear, and consistent design that takes the designing techniques to its core. Well, don’t get confused because it is not entirely related to app functionality. Yes, it is based on implementing the necessary design elements that take your mobile app towards the zone of success.
Have you ever noticed that a highly-rated app is always simple on the cards and that too with clear visual communication? The reason is, with attractive color schemes and aesthetic background, it is easily navigable. While incorporating the various aspects such as the white and negative space and proportionality, the designer uses his expertise to perfection. He/she enables the app to move with the right choice of visual balance. And, all such happens with a Minimalist UI for Mobile Apps.
Yes, so let’s learn what are the essentials while developing a Minimalist UI for Mobile Apps, and before that, let’s learn what is Minimalistic UI is. Let’s begin!
About Minimalistic UI- From a Mobile App’s Perspective
Minimalistic is a phrase that originated from the word minimalism. As the name conveys, minimalistic design is the one that is concise, simple, consistent, and comprises only the essential elements. It encompasses its functionality and goes beyond the interface of the app as well.
Users, businesses, and mobile app developers appreciate the approach alike because it removes complexities from the app’s UI and makes it a breeze to use. Essentially, a minimalistic mobile app offers clear visual communication that is simple to the core and enables the user to navigate it seamlessly.
Let’s take a look at some of the reasons that justify this approach:
a. It extends an improved user experience for better engagement.
b. Assures compatibility with different sizes of screens
c. Lessens the loading time of the app
d. It improves user retention and app stickiness.
e. Enhances the business ROI in the long run
So, you will be more than keen to embrace this trend, especially now when you probably know the advantages of investing in a minimalistic UI because this will be appropriate if you want to reinvent the design of an existing or if you are looking for a new one.
Make sure that you still need to be aware of all that goes into creating a minimalistic design as the best approach is to avail professional UI/UX design services for the same.
Features of Minimalist UI Design
But have you ever thought that why most of the businesspersons love using the minimalist UI design? Well, the answer is its traits. Yes, it helps all to analyze their web sites and offers them a chance to optimize their organizational objectives. Besides all, it encourages them and makes them able to earn profits and reach their business goals.
1. There are three-dimensional designs that have flat patterns as well as textures.
2. The minimalist UI designs help the user to improve the visual interest. And that too without even adding additional design. Isn’t it the best thing?
3. If you are using a minimalist interface, then you can easily get rid of the negative space of the webpage. Well, even before doing anything, the user only has to know the strong assertions, right?
4. Plus, while using such design, the users will experience the use of typography, which can easily make the website visually more engaging as it has many font sizes as well as font styles.
5. To properly organize the content: it prefers to use a grid layout. Moreover, it inserts design brilliantly. Any additional design elements are not required for grids.
High Demand for Minimalist UI Design for Mobile Apps
There is a huge demand for minimalistic UI design due to its wide-ranging benefits. Like you must keep an eye on nice minimalistic UI design for your app, especially as an app designer, and even seek inspiration from the work of others because that will surely decrease a lot of your energy, efforts, as well as the course time.
According to several pieces of research, the demand for minimalistic UI is very high for minimal UI design. About 50 percent of the mobile app developers and designers do take inspiration from others’ work. As we all know, this is the era of people who browse the web from their smartphones and tablets, so businesses
need to offer its users a mobile responsive website or apps that are compatible with such devices.
Hence, we can say to attract your target audience, keeping the UI design minimalistic is a great way. After all, to enhance the user experience, a brilliant
optimized UI design is crucial, plus it must have all elements that will help users in interacting with your app. This is why the app UI should be easily accessible as well as appealing.
Impact of Minimal UI Design on App Stickiness
If users come back to your app repeatedly or more often, then it defines the success of an app. This is why, to measure the popularity of an app, App Stickiness is a tool.
Are you thinking about how it happens – does it divide the MAU (Monthly Active Users) by the DAU (Daily Active Users)? Now all desire to go for a High stickiness ratio as it clarifies that user engagement is high, and users are addicted to your app. For example, owing to the minimal UI of the app design, we have Instagram as one of the stickiest mobile apps.
It is easily understandable, has ample whitespaces, its icons are identifiable, and don’t distract the users much. And, beyond all, it centers on user’s videos and photos and has zero clutter. Another thing that you can learn from the Instagram app is its “Simplicity.”
Hence, keep your app simple whenever you design it. You can make your users stick around more with to-the-point menus & navigations. Also, offer lesser options, so they can quickly on-board, instead of giving tonnes of options to the users.
Essentials of a Minimalist UI for Mobile Apps
Finding the perfect harmony between form and function means creating a minimalistic UI design since it is the perfect blend of UI and UX, which gets people to use it. So, the elements that deserve attention regarding this design are:
1. Content and Icons
The content of the app includes both textual information as well as certain visual elements, and certain visualization is what we call the icons. While incorporating these elements, Visual balance is the key, and this is what a designer needs to concentrate on because the objective is not only to hold the user’s attention but also to retain it as well.
1. Try to convey a clear message that is memorable as well as understandable even if you use the limited content.
2. To highlight the important parts of the app, use the icons in a very clear, unified way, and also place them very strategically.
3. Also, it makes sure that while creating icons, consistency is important because their curves, color, and thickness need to be balanced well.
4. Moreover, for the sake of visual appeal, keep the icons and content simple and uncluttered.
2. Color Schemes
As we all know, it is the colors that are the most attractive at all; hence we can say that it is the color scheme of your mobile app, which plays a vital role in making it eye-catching.
So, stick to a simple yet sophisticated color scheme for the sake of minimalism, because that gives a rich look to the app’s interface. Basically, for developers, there are two color scheme options. Let’s learn in brief about them:
A monochromatic scheme:
A monochromatic scheme is something that involves the use of an array of shades, tints, and tones within a specific color. The saturation points and brightness of the scheme can be changed to produce a different impact.
Analogous schemes:
On the other hand, Analogous schemes enable the designer to use three any colors that lie adjacent to each other on the color wheel. And, then those three colors are to be used for highlighting the design, with the lightest hue being used for the least important elements and functions, while the brightest color is reserved for the most important ones.
3. Use of White Space
White space, also known as negative space, does not have any color but is a significant component that plays a vital role in developing contrast, adding structure, and highlighting the several design elements of the app. Essentially, there are four types of which white space in design UI could be.
1. The space between letters and lines is the Text white space.
2. The space that is between images, icons & graphics is Visual white space.
3. The blank area that separates text and columns is what we refer to the Content white space.
4. And, the space of margins and paddings is Layout white space.
4. Typography
When it comes to bringing minimalism, one app and one typeface is a rule of thumb, and that is typography. And, as using multiple typefaces is one of the mistakes in your app that can ruin the UX, so emphasize the same to the mobile app development company you choose. Well, the designer needs to follow certain rules in this context:
1. As different fonts work for different content types, judicious font selection is important.
2. Make sure that font size matters a lot well because too large font may occupy too much screen space and impact responsive views; at the same time, a too-small font can degrade the visibility.
3. Combining so many typefaces on the app can make the design appear sloppy or inconsistent.
4. Picking the best color contrasts for background and fonts is also essential for clear aesthetics and visibility.
5. Proper Intellectual Activity
Do proper planning works always. And, do so in making proper app too. Hence, the very first of all steps is to plan each and everything. The user must think upon the color of the element, its typography, its contrast, its space, etc. The user must have a prior idea of the result. At last, it is all a matter of engaging the user via the app design.
6. Special Effects
There are some special effects that you must add to your app design, even if you want to have a minimalistic design for the app. Yes. So whatsoever effect you want to have in the UI, make sure that it adds value to the UX instead of breaking or disturbing it in any way. Here is the list of some effects that can be used in minimalistic designs:
1. For an enhanced visual experience, you can use the blur effect as it enables you to leverage the concept of layers and interface hierarchy.
2. A data spotlight is a good option as you can use a large font or bright visible color to emphasize an important piece of content. Besides all, it can get the user’s attention to key elements like CTA even not much work is needed for it.
Final Thoughts
So, we have learned how the success rate of the app greatly depends on compelling users’ designs that involve the users enough to stick with it as well as be back for more. Also, we have seen how a minimalistic design is a prevailing trend that gets you definite results. The focus, hence, must be on building ones with these specific designs and also on tweaking the existing apps to align with them. Well, at last, all you need is a vendor that can provide a great Minimalist UI for Mobile Apps.
So, Covetus could be the right choice that you can trust for helping you in making apps with the most amazing functionalities and designs. We offer custom interfaces for mobile apps and websites as a part of a great mobile app and web design services to match your requirements and the expectations of your target audience.
Connect with us to share your requirements, and we will deliver the best solution.
