First of all, you are quite right for pointing out that the style-de-jour is 'minimalism' for app and web designers. I too feel that there is something missing from the current attempts. It is my understanding that Minimalism is a process, a process of reduction, distilling a design to its core. It is this process that produces the simplicity that often goes hand in hand with minimalist design work. However, I don't see much evidence for this process in the current fashion. I see short-cuts taken to a determined end.
The UberWriter app the OP referenced, to me, smacks of this. It appears that the end design was determined first rather than a process of reduction being made. It appears that features were decided to be unnecessary. I mean, the app requires you, the user, to determine the visual structure of the document via mark-down: the complexity has been moved from the app to the user. All the features of a regular, equivalent word processor are still present in this app, it's just you have to memorize a bunch of special syntax instead of the location of a bunch of special icons. The app doesn't bring the fruits of minimalist design and is far, far from simple.
So in that sense, I am in agreement; the fashionable Minimalist style prevalent at the moment is only skin deep. However, there are some software designers, including myself, who see it as much, much more.
I agree.
Minimalism in the "unix" sense (Write programs that do one thing, and do that one thing well.) is beautiful.
Minimalism to get rid of all this useless fluff that no one ever uses is practical.
Minimalism in coding, not using overly complicated structure,functions,etc Is great for your sanity as well as anyone who has to deal with your code.
Minimalism as a feature on a checklist is going to harm anything or anyone involved.
If your obsessive about optimizing and tweaking your project (and try to keep a practical head about you) eventually the line between form and function will merge, that's when you stop.
Comments
First of all, you are quite right for pointing out that the style-de-jour is 'minimalism' for app and web designers. I too feel that there is something missing from the current attempts. It is my understanding that Minimalism is a process, a process of reduction, distilling a design to its core. It is this process that produces the simplicity that often goes hand in hand with minimalist design work. However, I don't see much evidence for this process in the current fashion. I see short-cuts taken to a determined end.
The UberWriter app the OP referenced, to me, smacks of this. It appears that the end design was determined first rather than a process of reduction being made. It appears that features were decided to be unnecessary. I mean, the app requires you, the user, to determine the visual structure of the document via mark-down: the complexity has been moved from the app to the user. All the features of a regular, equivalent word processor are still present in this app, it's just you have to memorize a bunch of special syntax instead of the location of a bunch of special icons. The app doesn't bring the fruits of minimalist design and is far, far from simple.
So in that sense, I am in agreement; the fashionable Minimalist style prevalent at the moment is only skin deep. However, there are some software designers, including myself, who see it as much, much more.
I agree. Minimalism in the "unix" sense (Write programs that do one thing, and do that one thing well.) is beautiful.
Minimalism to get rid of all this useless fluff that no one ever uses is practical.
Minimalism in coding, not using overly complicated structure,functions,etc Is great for your sanity as well as anyone who has to deal with your code.
Minimalism as a feature on a checklist is going to harm anything or anyone involved.
If your obsessive about optimizing and tweaking your project (and try to keep a practical head about you) eventually the line between form and function will merge, that's when you stop.