why we need more Modular UI
giving users agency over how their apps look, feel, and work
Our apps are too bloated because Big Tech bombards us with stupid features designed to drive superficial engagement, and that needs to change.
Remember Project Ara? Google's building blocks project for smartphones. That was exciting but hardware is very hard (Framework is kinda nailing it with laptops though!).
With software though, modularity ought to be much easier. There are already small examples of this, like Gmail and Telegram letting the user edit the tab menu at the bottom, removing unnecessary tabs.
But there are so many insanely popular apps full of useless functionalities (designed to drive engagement, obviously) that most users don't care about, and we end up using bloated products because only one or two of their zillion features have become a necessity for a lot of people.
WhatsApp is a great example. People use it for messaging but it has 5 bottom tabs for Status (Stories), Calls, Camera, and Settings.
It's insane because it's so bloated and it's the main form of communication (I'd say even above talking IRL) in so many countries, and most people don't even perceive how much its design choices shape how we relate to each other and even think. For example, you probably couldn't begin to grasp the cultural impact of custom-made WhatsApp stickers in South America, but that’s a whole other conversation.
Every app that still has a tab menu at the bottom is doing it very wrong, especially when it has more than 3 tabs. Instagram is also so full of missed opportunities in my opinion. Trying do to everything ends up driving their value down.
As I said, some apps already let us hide tabs and functionalities but they don't do enough. It shouldn't be just about hiding stuff you don't want but also emphasizing and optimizing the stuff you do want. On the web, browser extensions are a great workaround, but on mobile it is much harder. Maybe the gatekeepers (whether it's Apple, Google, or the EU) could require modularity (let the user choose which features appear on the app and hide the rest).
This also makes me think about the post-app future, where most startups develop not apps but features and those integrate into a more customizable UI. Of course this also has its own challenges, mainly giving too much power to the gatekeepers (iOS, ChatGPT, Windows, etc).
I recently had an email exchange with Jason Fried of 37signals because he wrote a post arguing about the importance of Software Defaults, which I mostly agree with, but I think that even in the world of modularity and choice there are lines we can draw and paths we can delineate as designers.
We can all probably agree that there is not one right design for everything for everyone because each individual has -sometimes slightly, sometimes overtly- different triggers, priorities, and motivations. There is no shortage of awesome apps that are very opinionated about how users should use them, but I'd love to see a future where these apps let users design their own "opinions" on design.
Obviously most people are gonna stick with the default always but designing a way in which you are gonna let your user have more control over the experience (and instruct them on how to more effectively costumize their UI) is also a big responsibility and opportunity, a sort of meta-design.