Aesthetic and minimalist design: The UNIQLO Wake Up application provides an effective minimalist design while sustaining expected function. By looking at the picture below, you understand that the alarm app has four main functions; from there we get a very simple screen that triggers when an alarm goes off, and the rest of the screen is covered with a very simple weather display. Overall, the application performs what it needs to do and even includes a little extra, all while maintaining a simple interface.

Now, for a bad example/use of minimalist design, we can look towards the Windows 8 OS, especially before they updated the design/functionality. Many people were upset when this operating system was released because Microsoft over simplified the personal computer. They chose to make a platform that provides quick entertainment access, but in the process, made it difficult to do many of the more complex tasks on a computer. Finding certain things are hard because everything is kind of thrown at you. They fixed some of the issues by allowing computers to start on the original desktop look.

As a change to the design of Windows 8, I would make more Windows 7 functionality present, such as the start menu and quick access to finding the control panel. For additional changes, I would actually increase the minimalism and fade certain parts of the screen instead of offering many of the options as blocks. For example, create a few categories that can be highlighted, and then the blocks should pop up based on what the user is looking for. This would create one more simple step for finding things, but it would really minimalize the home screen. Here’s a simple picture of the design: