![]() ![]() Subdued color schemes are intended to avoid upstaging the content-which, in the case of images, can still be brightly colored. Minimalist color palettes are a movement away from the clashing, loud colors of the web design popular in the 2000s. With less visual information vying for a user’s attention, color palettes are more noticeable and will be more influential in a site’s impact. In most minimalist interfaces, color is used strategically to create visual interest or direct attention without adding any additional design elements or actual graphics. We believe that a better approach is a compromise between flat and skeuomorphic-a mostly flat design, but with clickable elements that users can recognize easily.Ĭonsidering that flat design is the design idea most likely to be used incorrectly and degrade the user experience, it’s unfortunate that it’s the most prevalent of the main characteristics of minimalist web design. Thus, the interactive user experience adds depth to the flat interface elements.)Īs we’ve discussed in other articles, flat designs often fail to communicate to users which elements are selectable or clickable. Also, the buttons show a tiny 3D effect when clicked that adds a small sense of physicality. (However in this case, the buttons highlight when the mouse passes over them, providing a dynamic signifier of clickability. (Ghost buttons are empty buttons with a thin rectangular border and text.) Flat ghost buttons can have legibility problems, and they break away from the established convention of what a clickable button should be. The Getting Started page for Jeet.gs grid system API features a completely flat interface, including ‘ghost buttons’ for copying code snippets. An interface may be flat without being minimalist. Minimalist design applies to the larger or overarching content, feature, and layout strategies. Flat design generally refers to the textures, icons, or graphics in an interface. The two tend to co-occur so frequently that the phrase ‘flat design’ is often (misleadingly) used interchangeably with ‘minimalist design.’ The trends are similar, but not the same. In our sample, 96% of the minimalist sites were flat. ![]() The two trends are extremely compatible removing gratuitous shadows, gradients, and textures falls in line with minimalism’s primary goal of eliminating the unnecessary. Some designers believe that the flat-design trend grew out of the popularity of minimalist UI design (Müller, 2014). ![]() Flatinterfaces don’t make use of any of the obvious highlights, shadows, gradients, or other textures that make UI elements look glossy or three-dimensional. Over the past few years, there has been an overwhelming shift in the design community away from skeuomorphism, towards purely digital representations of things without physical metaphors. Used in 96% of sampled interfaces (but often ineffectively) So what features were present in most of these designs? We included a feature among the defining characteristics of minimalism if it was present in at least three quarters (75%) of the websites that we analyzed. As discussed further below, our other research suggests that while some of these design ideas can support business goals, others can hurt your profitability. In this study, we analyzed sites that are known to employ minimalist design, not sites that are known to be highly profitable. Remember that just because a design technique is popular doesn’t necessarily mean that it always supports user needs and optimizes profitability or other business objectives. Sites were selected for the study if they were either identified by an outside web-design expert as minimalist, or were included in an online gallery for inspirational minimalist sites. To more clearly define what constitutes a minimalist design in practice, we analyzed the design characteristics of a sample of 112 minimalist websites. The word ‘minimalism’ is thrown around a lot, yet it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what features define a minimalist web design. ![]() Web design, like language, is defined by the way people use it. Many of the visual-design characteristics commonly associated with minimalism are choices that serve the core strategy of minimalism particularly well, and so have been adopted along with minimalism in most instances. In order to reduce a website to only its most necessary elements, designers must accept a cascade of consequences that impact both the user interface (UI) and the content of the site. If you’re interested in the origins of the movement, read The Roots of Minimalism in Web Design.Ī minimalist web-design strategy is one that seeks to simplify interfaces by removing unnecessary elements or content that does not support user tasks. This article is the second in a series devoted to the understanding of minimalism in web design. ![]()
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