The web app began with a simple UI with no buttons on the home page. After a few years, it had lot of buttons, similar to how Microsoft Word looks like. Not so good! How to design a product that is having the buttons and at the same time not having any buttons but provides all the features we need? Can we remove all the buttons to make the design simple and at the same time provide business value?
The general form of physical contradiction looks like:
X must have A and X must have -A
The thing X must have some property and the opposite property. We can break this contradiction by asking:
1. Do we need both A and -A at the same time?
2. Do we need both A and -A in the same space?
In the web app design case, we can choose the time as a way to separate the opposing properties. We can apply the Separation in Time principle to resolve this physical contradiction.
The design must be modified by removing all the buttons or as many buttons as possible on the home page. The button should appear only when the context is right during the use of the product. One of the reasons why the product became messy page with many buttons is that the app was very CRUD based.
It lacked clear messaging to the users when using the product and did not provide any next action to take during the workflow. By making the messages actionable, we can include the links that provides them a clear action to take to complete their task.
