Timeless digital design?

Still a work in progress...

Would you trust a tool with your livelihood if it only needed a few minutes to master?

Yes, the UI needs to be simple. But..

Let's take an example of Microsoft Paint. A tool of just a few minutes of learning curve...

Microsoft Paint interface
Microsoft Paint: learnable in minutes, and that is exactly its ceiling.

Paint is simple. But you never see a designer working on it.

Is it then too simple? So what's the industry standard?

CorelDraw interface
CorelDraw: Difficult but the entire print industry stands by it

CorelDraw does not shy away from its weeks of learning curve.

So the simplification of UI is not the answer to efficiency

Let's plot the digital interfaces we use on 2 axes

What would be timeless digital design?

So here are the axes

Complexity of motive on X-axis and means on Y-axis

Now let's add some examples for it to make sense

Digital assets, plotted.

Left area

  1. India works in this sector a lot.
  2. A lot of work available as references.
  3. Solves simple, linear problems.

**Summary of apps**

Tools area

  1. India usually doesn't work on this. Except a few.
  2. Every tool is distinct and intricate for professional use.
  3. Potential for use to solve complex problems.

**Summary of tools**

So..What are digital tools?

How are they different from the left hand side artefacts

And how to make them

Here's what I've found out.

What should be a tool?

Tool criteria

  1. Have a longer than 10 minutes of usage journey.
  2. User should create an output like 3D model, note, image etc.

Principles of Digital tools

Themes of principles

And my learnings go on

The digital double of my research board. Open in Figma

That's all for now

A lot more to add here. Let's talk

Slides