But more often, businesses settle for bland designs because it seems like all the best ideas are taken.Ĭoming up with fresh imagery is a challenge, but there’s an upside. Everyone wants to stand out and be the next trendsetter.
"We are not perfect," Castellarnau says, "like anybody else.Brands big and small are working harder to create eye-catching logo designs. Illustrations can also turn an aggravating error message into a charming mea culpa-or at least a sign that the app was made by humans for humans. (Castellarnau thinks a double-decker bus has more emotional resonance than a single-decker one.) The sign-up window on the new app displays how you can send and access files from anywhere, whether you're on a train, airplane, or double-decker bus. That hasn't changed, even though the company is now valued at $10 billion. For that, Dropbox has cultivated a whimsical personality expressed through playful animations.ĭropbox has always deployed illustrations as a way to bring a human feel to such technical-sounding activities as data syncing.
But ease of use isn’t always enough to win brand loyalists. To the right of the bell is a descriptive noun, “notifications.” Clarity achieved, albeit with 13-character word.Ī crystal-clear four-feature main menu keeps users from scratching their heads. The very thing that was meant to lighten a user’s cognitive load through visual shorthand-an icon-led to more confusion and, ultimately, avoidance. “Everybody gave a different answer.” Plus, nobody clicked on it, which was a bigger problem. “Nobody knew what that bell was about,” Castellarnau says. The bell icon represents notifications of activities in your account-when some shares a file with you, for instance-but that was news to app users. There was one button the team decided to keep in the main menu even though few people used it. Sometimes an Icon's Meaning Isn't Obvious In bringing the app up to date with Google's Material Design standards, the company saw an opportunity to improve how the app functioned in the hands of users. But Dropbox wants to strike a balance between mere simplicity and the kind of approachability famously exemplified by Apple’s smiling Mac icon, designed by Susan Kare in 1984. This makes sense, because the straightforward act of sharing documents shouldn't require fancy UI moves. “We aspire to be as invisible as possible,” Castellarnau says. From its beginning in 2007, the company's design efforts have been intentionally low-profile. Now, that may not seem like an impressive feat, but the company managed to make the UI even more straightforward.ĭropbox doesn't come to mind when you think of design-driven companies, and that's just fine with Alex Castellarnau, the company's head of design.
When it came time to redesign Dropbox's five-year-old Android app, the goal was to downplay design even more.
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