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Design with materials, not features | thesephist.com

thesephist.com · 1,928 words · saved by 7 readers

Some software interfaces are windows into collections of features. The Uber app, for example, literally opens with a screen full of buttons, each of which take you to a different screen with yet more buttons and inputs. Google Search is also built with features – inputs, buttons, and links that take you to different capabilities in the app – as the building block. In both of these cases, there are a few clear and obvious tasks the user wants to accomplish when they open the app. In the case of Uber, it’s to get somewhere or to order some food. On Google, it’s to find some website or information. Because there are well-defined paths for users to take, familiar interface elements like links and buttons to access different features makes a lot of sense. For software like Figma, Apple Notes, and the humble file explorer, there aren’t such clearly defined tasks that users would want to accomplish when the open the app. People don’t open up a file browser to just create new files or just mov

Some software interfaces are windows into collections of features . The Uber app, for example, literally opens with a screen full of buttons, each of which take you to a different screen with yet more buttons and inputs. Google Search is also built with features - inputs, buttons, and links that take you to different capabilities in the app - as the building block. In both of these cases, there are a few clear and obvious tasks the user wants to accomplish when they open the app. In the case of Uber, it's to get somewhere or to order some food. On Google, it's to find some website or informati

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