A clean and concise user interface is one of the main competitive advantages of a digital project. Unfortunately, for its creation, theoretical information may not be enough. This is what prompted us to create this article, where we will analyze thirteen inspiring examples of world-famous web solutions that are the true embodiment of pure UI.
Why Clean UI Is So Important?
Clean UI defines the simplicity and intuitiveness of the interaction of end users with an application or website. Thus, this factor can significantly increase customer loyalty (as well as its absence – to lower it). Also, the clean interface makes it easier for new users to onboard, lowering the entry threshold and making them come back to your digital solution again and again.
List of Cool Startups That Will Help You Understand the Importance of Clean UI
So let's find out which startups have chosen their target audience for the cleanliness of the user interface.
Notion
In its few years of existence, Notion has become the go-to killer for Google Docs, Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, and other solutions for note-taking, text documents, to-do lists, databases, spreadsheets, kanban boards, and so on. However, unlike its main competitors, this web service is characterized by an extremely concise user interface. This is reflected in everything - from the stunning visuals to the absence of the need to jump between individual tabs.
Content in Notion consists of blocks that can be moved and easily transformed. In the first two years, only 1000 blocks could be created here for free. But in May 2020, the service lifted this restriction.
At present, the cost of the project has increased to $10 billion. Given that the first version of the project was released not so long ago – in 2018, this can be considered a colossal success (and in many ways - thanks to a perfectly implemented user interface).
Figma
Figma has become the main competitor of Adobe Illustrator and InDesign. And this is not surprising, given the simply ingenious user-friendly interface, where even a beginner can figure out what to do in just 15 minutes of use.
Figma is an online collaborative graphic editor. Here you can prototype websites in minutes, build application interfaces, and discuss edits with colleagues in real time. The features of Figma do not end here: you can also create a visual for interface elements, as well as build interactive prototypes, illustrations, and even vector graphics.
This project was launched in 2012, however, thanks to its design, it quickly supplanted the above-described market leaders that have existed since the late nineties.
FlowMapp
FlowMapp is a UX web service that includes online planning tools for creating visual customer journey maps, user flows, sitemaps, and personas. Together, all its features can be great helpers for both beginners and experienced web designers. Thanks to pure and minimalistic UI, FlowMapp has become a major competitor to such popular solutions as.
Currently, this project contains three main components: Flowchart, Sitemap, and User Flow. All of them are designed to reproduce and predict the behavior of potential target audience, allowing specialists to generate non-standard ideas for implementing trivial scenarios in user interfaces.
Convy
With the Convy (ex. Besedа) solution, you can no longer face the need for useless meetings and instead choose the option of asynchronous audio and video chats that can be implemented directly through your web browser.
In addition to the wonderful functionality, we, as people directly related to web design, cannot but be pleased with the implementation of this product in terms of visuals and the way it interacts with end users. In particular, even if you have never had experience using such web services before, it will not be difficult to figure out how this one works. Despite the fact that this product is still in beta, it is already fully adapted for inexperienced PC users: just offer your five-year-old child or beloved grandmother to check it to see if it is really understandable and intuitive.
Spline
This is an easy-to-use 3D design tool that is equally well-suited for experienced users and beginners alike. In particular, with its help, you can build 3D scenes, model 3D objects, and edit previously created projects. It's much easier to learn than full-featured 3D applications like Cinema 4D or Blender because it's not jaded with a lot of advanced settings and features. Moreover, fast onboarding in this application is often the deciding factor for its use.
You can use it directly through a web browser, which adds undeniable convenience to those who do not have enough disk space.
Loom
Loom is a fantastic tool created for training centers and companies for collaborative work. In particular, it allows users to easily create on-screen video messages. This means that they will not have to attach a video with lengthy explanations of the issues discussed.
All recorded files are stored on the platform, so you don't have to email or upload them to platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, or Facebook. All you have to do is share a link to the video so that any other person, even if they are not platform users, can get access the video content.
Due to its unparalleled convenience, Loom has become a leader among such mastodons as CloudApp, Soapbox, and others.
Revolut
Revolut is a multifunctional financial service, the features of which include a current account, a debit card for 20+ currencies, and commission-free trading on the stock exchange.
Revolut has been operating since 2015, and since then, more than 4 million people have used it. In 2018, the service received a banking license from the European Central Bank. The Revolut account is managed through a mobile application.
The Revolut card is issued free of charge and includes shipping only. With its help, the owner can pay in 120+ currencies (including cryptocurrencies) without commission and at the best rate. There is also no fee for withdrawing cash from an ATM.
In just one year since its launch, Revolut has torn apart all other online banking apps thanks to its cleanliness and convenience.
Headspace
Headspace is a very beautiful and concise meditation app that allows you to make mental awareness your habit. It tells you how to relax, manage stress, focus, and release tension in your mind and body.
In particular, the application allows its users to conduct short 3-minute sessions of mindfulness meditation, as well as longer meditation sessions at any time of the day. There are options to add friends for live group meditations and turn on relaxing auto-training, sounds, and music.
The application contains customization options and, in general, is very understandable for users with basic smartphone skills.
Pitch
Pitch is a web service for creating and editing presentations in command mode. Its release took place in 2020 under the loud announcement of the "killer of PowerPoint and Google Slides".
These statements were soon confirmed in practice, and the word “pitch” derived from the name of this application entered the daily use of its target audience.
All manipulations within Pitch are carried out in the Workspace, which is common to the entire team. It allows you to organize collaboration, manage projects, and communicate during their implementation. Users can create multiple Workspaces in one account, giving each of them a name and an icon for better identification.
The interface of this graphical editor is simple and clear, all the necessary tools are located in plain sight. To speed up your work, Pitch offers ready-made templates, made in a bright recognizable style with illustrations, stickers, and graphics in 3D style, as well as smart formatting, and a quick menu with a text field for entering keywords.
HEY
HEY is a great app that allows you to visualize emails just like calls. Obviously, in the case of this application, the simplicity of the user interface is the key to attracting the target audience, as the developers have positioned their product as an easier email management tool than the email services (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) that you used before.
In particular, the application gives its users full control over which emails should go to the main Inbox and which should not (for example, trackers, spam, etc., which are automatically blocked in the application). You can add notes to them, as well as filter by branches.
HEY groups new unread emails at the top of the feed, while viewed ones are at the bottom. It also allows you to open multiple emails at once and scroll through them, just like when using social media apps. The option to view attachments deserves special attention: this can be done without opening the emails to which they belong.
And finally, we note the option to view emails that need to be read later: HEY allows you to "save" them in a separate folder so that if necessary you can read them at any time convenient for you.
ReadyMag
Readymag is a popular online graphic editor where you can create any kind of web publication: landing pages, portfolios, magazines, websites, multimedia longreads, and presentations. You don't have to know how to code to use this app - instead, you just need a basic knowledge of graphic and web design.
Among millions of website builders, this one stands out for its unsurpassed convenience – just take a look at how simple and elegant the user interface looks! At the same time, this aspect in no way reduces the quality of the projects created: they turn out to be really stylish and visually attractive. If we talk about the main competitors of ReadyMag, we would include WordPress in this list.
Squoosh
Squoosh is a lightweight and extremely user-friendly image optimization application. Due to the ease of interaction with end users, we can attribute absolutely all popular graphic editors to its competitors, from Paint to more professional ones (for example, Adobe Photoshop).
You will hardly find anything superfluous in this application: all its functionality is ideally tailored for users who need to edit the image right here and now, while maintaining its quality while reducing the size of uploaded files, guaranteeing privacy (all pictures are stored only on the end user's personal device), and providing unprecedented customization flexibility.
MailChimp
Mailchimp is one of the popular automated email-sending services. We love it not only for a large number of templates for emails and extended functionality (for example, it checks regularly the “cleanliness” of the subscription base, unsubscribing broken email addresses): being experts in web design, we cannot fail to note the cleanliness of the Mailchimp interface.
In particular, one of the main problems faced by website owners who administer them personally is the high entry threshold for integrated solutions (including solutions for sending emails). This shortcoming is typical of such popular services as Hubspot, GetResponse, Constant Contact, and others. In turn, Mailchimp is extremely simple from this point of view, and therefore can be easily used by non-professional webmasters.
Final Thoughts
We hope that all the projects described above have inspired you to create a clean user interface and now, you have real examples (and not just dry theory) at hand for implementing the smooth interaction of your product with its target audience. You may also find here some solutions for personal use. So, good luck!