Have you noticed a change in some of your favorite apps over the past few years? Instagram’s controversial logo change; Airbnb’s swap from a photo-filled app background to plain white; Apple Music’s decision to remove almost all text and display album covers front and center. Perhaps you’ve noticed other apps you love transitioning to fewer colors, a simpler art style, more white space, or concise typography? Minimalist app design has taken over. This isn’t an accident. In a journey to deliver the best experiences to users, app companies adopt the design styles that work best for users. Minimalism isn’t just an aesthetic choice; this style delivers an exceptional user experience, which has prompted many of today’s popular apps to take the minimalist plunge. What makes for great minimalist app design? Read on to find out. 1. Color One of the key factors at play in minimalist design is color choice. In the early days, developers and designers were eager to explore photo backgrounds and palettes of multiple colors. Now, these choices make apps feel more cluttered and overwhelming than exciting. Minimalist design approaches color in two different ways: Monochromatic Color This scheme is made up of shades, tints, and tones within one hue. Various colors are created by changing the hue brightness and saturation. The result is a color palette that’s very easy on the eyes, although its main disadvantage is the lack of color for accents and highlights. This wallet app design makes great use of monochromatic color, using blue as its hue and supporting it with lighter and darker versions of the main color. [caption id="attachment_14682" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Monochromatic color scheme in finance app, Photo Source: dribble.com[/caption] Analogous Color This scheme uses three colors that sit next to each other on the color wheel, to highlight different aspects of the app. Each color, for instance, may be used to designate the level of categories. Bold colors are typically used to designate important aspects. This vitamin app design uses purple, yellow, and orange as its analogous color scheme. [caption id="attachment_14683" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Analogous color scheme in vitamin app, Photo Source: dribble.com[/caption] 2. Clear Typography The goal of typography within an app is to establish clear communication of the app’s purpose, and help users achieve that purpose. The purpose of Instagram is to post images and comment on others’ images. For Spotify, it’s searching for and playing music. Minimalist app typography focuses on using one typeface throughout. Multiple typefaces — even if used for different categories — can give your app a sloppy, disorganized feel. Instead, designers use varying sizes, styles, and weights within one typeface to create these differences while giving a cohesive feel for the app as a whole. With some exceptions, most apps focus on using the OS’s standard typeface (Noto and Roboto for Android, San Francisco for iOS) as they are simple and easy for users to read. 3. White Space Apps need to organize and divide information for easy user navigation, yet traditional divider lines are becoming less common. That’s because there’s only so much space on mobile devices. Too many lines can result in a cluttered interface. Minimalist design relies on spacing, shadows, and blocks to divide information without filling the screen up with lines. Indeed, white space is referred to as the “backbone” of minimalist app design. White space gives apps a simplified yet refined look that’s pleasing to the eye. White space also enhances the chosen typeface and colors, allowing them to stand out amid an overall minimal background. Apps like Ghani Pradita and Apple’s Timer are two fabulous examples that successfully use white space to organize information for the user. [caption id="attachment_14684" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Ghani Pradita app, Photo Source: smashfreakz.com[/caption] [caption id="attachment_14685" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Apple’s Timer app, Photo Source: smashfreakz.com[/caption] 4. Enhancement There are many ways to enhance or highlight app information with minimalist design. Some apps use bold color, or a contrasting color against a generally neutral color scheme for calls to action. These colors draw the user’s attention to important next steps (more on this in our next section). Another option is increased font size, which should only be used to spotlight your app’s most important information. Some minimalist apps get more creative to highlight important information. Shadows and elevation are great division options, apart from white space or traditional lines. Even in straightforward apps like calculators, shadows can enhance the app’s look. Blurring backgrounds is another way to focus the attention on particular menu or action. [caption id="attachment_14686" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Calculator app design, Photo Source: dribble.com[/caption] Minimalism and the Modern App Keep in mind, among all successful apps that use a minimalist design style, minimalism isn’t a goal in itself. The goal of app design remains true to its purpose for users, and minimalism is simply a tool used to achieve that purpose. Accessible design, for instance, is particularly important for people with disabilities (e.g. blindness) to access your app. One of the benefits of minimalism is that it can accommodate accessibility guidelines and create excellent experiences for everyone. Apps have been pervading mobile devices for a decade now, and we are continuing to gather feedback and learn more about creating excellent user experiences. Minimalism has popped up recently as a popular — and very effective — app design style to achieve a successful user experience. When designing your own app, don’t shy away from minimalism for fear that it may make your app look too much like others in the Apple and Google stores. Today’s hottest apps have adapted this style for very good reason; before you push away from the “trendy” design style for the sake of standing out, consider carefully whether minimalist design may deliver your users the best experience for your app’s purpose. Interested in designing a minimalist style app? Get in touch with our experienced team of developers today!

So, your website is up and running, people come to your site and get value from it... but are you really maximizing the opportunities you have? A wise person once said, “Excellence is not a destination; it is a continuous journey that never ends.” And while this quote was in relation to someone's personal life why can’t it also pertain to your company’s web presence? Taking this philosophy and applying it to your company is what will put it in the top tier.  Just because you have a functioning website does not mean that it’s the best possible website you could be giving to your visitors. Re-design will allow you to improve the way you present your information and change how visitors use and engage with your site. Below we have detailed  a few of the reasons it might be time for you to redesign your website. You aren’t getting the results you want. If you’re not getting the results you want it may be time to improve your website. A new design can allow you to create new calls to action that will allow you to better optimize your site for lead generation. Because at the end of the day that’s the end goal, right? So it's definitely beneficial to do what you can to improve your conversion rates. A few important things to take into consideration is the copy of your website:  is it too text heavy or does it not give enough details? Does it match your company's voice? What about the look- does it go with a general theme or just seem sporadic? While these all might seem like minescule factors about your website it's important to remember that all combined together they are your company's voice and online impression. Make it count. Your website doesn’t work across all platforms. If you’re anything like me you like to do majority of things from your phone and then later will check it again from your computer. We expect things to be easy across all channels and to be able to seamlessly  transition between any platform. Providing a smooth experience for your visitors is a key factor. By having a responsive design it allows your website to be easily adaptable from any screen on any device. Another key thing to take notice of is the functionality of your website. How easy is your site to use? Are your call to actions visible and easy to access? These are highly important factors that can make or break your website! The purpose of your site has changed. It's important to stay on top of your website's purpose; if it has changed then your website should reflect this change. Perhaps your marketing strategy has changed or you have decided to feature different aspects of the company altogether. Perhaps you want people to read your blog more or use your request a quote box more often. Whichever it is- keeping up to date with your site’s purpose is highly important. Another instance to be mindful of is if your company has added new services or features. If so, then your website should reflect this change otherwise your visitors will take their business elsewhere! Your third-party tools are outdated. A very important factor to pay attention is to how your third party tools are functioning. Ask yourself the questions: are these tools up to date ? Are they functioning at the highest level they could? If you answered no to either of these questions then perhaps it's time for an upgrade. Making the moves to more modern third party tools will not only appeal to your visitors but also turn them into leads. By ensuring that you are up to date with current technology you will not have to worry about your website lacking in loading times or meeting your guests with error pages! Your Sites Loading Time is …. Slow! As we’ve entered 2018 its important to note that loading speed is now a MAJOR factor. Even if we don't like to admit it, we’re impatient people who have grown accustomed to pages loading instantaneously. “People will visit a Web site less often if it is slower than a close competitor by more than 250 milliseconds (a millisecond is a thousandth of a second)” (Ny Times, 2018). Website speed and mobile speed should be  a top priority. If your website is loading slowly then it's definitely time for an upgrade.  Some of the Features or Content Don’t Display Properly Ensuring that your content displays properly is another major factor to be mindful of. As I said previously it's important to have seamless transitions between your web and mobile and the same goes for the way the content displays. You should also be mindful of the many different mobile devices your visitors may be using- there are lots of options out there! Whether they are looking from an iPhone or an Android Tablet the navigation and display should be easy to use and look the same across all channels. Compare to Competitors Another important reason to consider redesigning your website is seeing how it stacks up against the competition. By keeping up with the competition you are able to set your prices competitively, create marketing strategies, and accurately respond to rival marketing campaigns. If your top competitor is having far more success generating traffic to their site  then perhaps it's time to take a look at their site and see what they are doing differently. Now you don’t need to redesign your website every time you see your competitors making changes but staying relevant and up to date will be beneficial in the long run. I hope that you’ve found the above reasons as useful insight on whether or not to redesign your website. It’s easy to remain content with a website that’s working but as we said above: are you maximizing on the opportunities you have? If you’re not, or you felt like any of the above reasons directly related to your website, it's time to redesign! This will be an exciting time because you will be able to take a close look at your website, analyze the strategies that have worked, and improve! Remember “excellence is a continuous journey, not a destination.” Now, we are aware that redesigning your website can seem like a daunting or overwhelming task, but that's where we come in! Barefoot Solutions is more than happy to work with you to help redesign your website. Use the contact button located below and let's get redesigning!  

As a custom app development shop, our answer to client questions is almost always yes. Can you build social login? Yes. Can we add @mentions? Yes. Private Messages? Yes. Camera effects? Yes. Yes. Yes. Software development in 2018 is more powerful than ever, and so is the temptation to add all sorts of bells and whistles to your app. But should you? No. Because what you don’t build is just as important as what you do. The concept of oppositional forces is pretty common in other design disciplines, but much less so in UI/UX design. For example note the deliberate use of negative space in these popular logos, including FedEx’s famous arrow. Music is another example, where the silence is every bit as important as the sound itself. In the world of UX design “negative space” takes the form of functional constraints, or all the things you can’t do.  Perhaps the best illustration of this is Twitter, which famously decided to limit messages to just 140 characters. Over time this seemingly arbitrary constraint became the critical seed for a massively popular communication platform. Because make no mistake, we all WANT to write longer messages. But Twitter’s UX forced us to play by their rules, and in doing so created something unique. Facebook offers another great example of leveraging UX constraints. We all know the story- Facebook began as a small shrub living in the shadow of the social networking juggernaut MySpace, which Rupert Murdoch bought for $580 Million in 2005. But Myspace is now essentially worthless while Facebook is valued at $500 Billion. What’s fascinating from a UX standpoint is that Facebook didn’t beat MySpace by doing more, they won by doing less. Specifically, there were two critical UX decisions generally accepted as the reasons why they won the social network war: • Facebook did NOT allow everyone to sign up. At the start they limited accounts to college students only, which gave it a critical sheen of exclusivity and maturity just as MySpace was being overrun with younger kids and spammy content. • Facebook did NOT allow the ability to customize profile pages, allowing for a consistent and clean UI that stood in stark contrast to MySpace’s abrasive user-generated layouts. Instagram offers a more contemporary example; at first I found it frustrating that when re-opening the app, it ditches what you were previously looking at and auto-refreshes to more recent content. For example if you scroll down 20 pictures, when re-opening the app it will jump back to the top of those 20. But over time I came to realize that NOT saving my location and refreshing the content was causing me to compulsively check the app by feeding my “seeker” brain with new content every time. Another fascinating Instagram constraint is the inability to create web links. Hyperlinks are a fundamental currency of the internet, and yet when commenting on Instagram, their UX team has made a very deliberate decision to prevent users from including linked URLs in comments. The only hyperlinks you can create are #hashtags and @mentions. And consider the consequence of that decision: it prevents users from leaving the app and forces the social engagement to remain very basic, both of which work towards supporting Instagram’s primary identity as a lightweight picture based experience. And that’s an important point, because the key to leveraging constraints in UX design is to do so in a manner that strengthens the focus on your app's core identity.  Constraints that work against your core value proposition will be damaging, but constraints that pull users back into your sweet spot are invaluable to your success. A great example of this two-sided UX coin is Snapchat, which became the hottest new app in town by introducing a wonderfully simple constraint: disappearing messages. In a world of oppressively persistent social media, where mistakes we made 10 years ago float into our job interviews, Snapchat offered an oasis of consequence free pictures and video. It was brilliant, and the platform took off like a rocket. But over time temptation crept in, and Snapchat couldn’t resist adding new features that directly contradict the temporary messages which defined their identity. Take for example the “Memories” section which saves your old Snaps so you can repost them again. On the surface this may seem like a neat new tool, but if we dig a little deeper, what is the Memories section doing to their core value proposition of not saving messages? It obliterates it. I could elaborate further (public stories!) but the bottom line is that over time Snapchat added new functionality that undermined the key ephemerality constraint that defined their platform. If you go find a millennial and ask them why they like Snapchat, most likely they will mention Snapchat's awesome face filters, because the mental model of disappearing messages has been almost entirely eroded. Certainly they won't know why the logo is a ghost. And not coincidentally, Snapchat is currently in crisis- numbers have leaked showing adoption has started to flatline. The easy explanation is to blame Instagram for brazenly ripping off Snapchat’s stories, but that view overlooks the many ways in which Snapchat removed its own key constraints and evolved itself into basically the same service as Instagram. Instagram could never have competed with Snapchat if the playing field was privacy and disappearing content. There are many more examples of this, including Twitter's recent decision to double their character limit to 280, but I'll take my own advice now and wrap this up. The key takeaway for UX designers and product developers is to ask yourself: What are my key constraints? And do I offer any functionality that could be removed to improve focus on my product's core value?