Designing products with cat-like flexibility and witty efficiency

Break it down, build it up!

Modular design is the key to creating products that are scalable, consistent, and cost-effective. By breaking down complex problems into manageable units and reusing existing solutions, you can adapt to changing needs and create products that are as flexible as a cat. In this article, we’ll explore the power of modular design and how it can help you create products that are as adaptable as they are effective.

User experience (UX) design is the process of creating products or services that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. UX design involves not only the visual appearance and functionality of a product, but also the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of user interaction.

The UX designer's role is to make a product or service usable, enjoyable, and accessible. While many companies design user experiences, the term is most often associated with digital design for websites and apps. While the exact process varies from product to product and company to company, the general phases of design tend to stay the same.

One of the challenges that UX designers face is how to create products that can adapt to changing user needs, business goals, and technological advancements. How can we design products that are flexible, maintainable, and future-proof? How can we ensure that our products provide consistent and coherent experiences across different platforms, devices, and contexts?

One possible answer is modular design.

What is Modular Design?

Modular design is the practice of subdividing a product into its components modules to develop a better understanding of how it works. Each module is a self-contained unit that performs a specific function and has a well-defined interface with other modules. Modules can be stacked, rearranged, customized, reused, and combined into a larger system.

Modular design is not a new concept. It has been used in various fields such as architecture, engineering, manufacturing, and education for decades.

“The great thing about modular design is that it lets you break down complex systems into manageable chunks that can be easily understood and reused.” — Steve Krug

Why Use Modular Design?

Modular design helps in creating experiences that are scalable, consistent, and cost-effective. By breaking down a product into smaller and simpler modules, we can reduce the complexity and interdependency of the system. This makes it easier to add new features, update existing ones, or remove unnecessary ones without affecting the whole product.

For example, Spotify uses a modular design approach for its music streaming app. The app consists of different modules such as playlists, albums, artists, genres, etc. Each module has its own layout, functionality, and content. Users can customize their app by adding or removing modules according to their preferences. This allows Spotify to offer a personalized and adaptable experience for different users and contexts.

Modular design supports a stable design system and allows it to grow. A design system is a set of guidelines, principles, patterns, and components that define the visual language and interaction behavior of a product. A design system helps designers create consistent and coherent experiences across different platforms, devices, and contexts.

By using modular design, we can ensure that each module follows the same design system and adheres to the same standards. This reduces the risk of inconsistency and confusion for users. It also saves time and effort for designers as they can reuse existing modules instead of creating new ones from scratch.

For example, Airbnb uses a modular design system called DLS (Design Language System) for its website and app. DLS consists of different modules such as buttons, icons, cards, grids, etc. Each module has its own specifications, rules, and variations. Designers can use these modules to create different pages or views for Airbnb’s products. This ensures that Airbnb’s products have a consistent look and feel across different platforms and devices.

“A good designer knows how to achieve simplicity on the outside by managing complexity on the inside.” — Don Norman

Modular design enables the creation of consistent experiences that would be cost-effective to then categorize into different service tiers based on user needs. By using modular design, we can create products that are adaptable to different user segments and scenarios. We can offer different levels of functionality, quality, or customization depending on the user’s needs and preferences.

For example, Netflix uses a modular design approach for its video streaming service in terms of content and technical features such as streaming in SD or HD or UHD. The service consists of different modules such as genres, recommendations, profiles, settings, etc. Each module has its own functionality and content. Users can choose from different plans that offer different levels of access to these modules based on their budget and preferences. This allows Netflix to cater to different user segments and scenarios with varying degrees of service quality.

An analogy from the automotive design can illustrate this point. A car consists of different modules such as engine, transmission, chassis, body, etc. Each module has its own function and specifications. Depending on the customer’s needs and budget, they can choose from different models or options that offer different levels of performance, comfort, or safety. This allows car manufacturers to target different customer segments and scenarios with varying degrees of service quality.

How to Apply Modular Design?

Modular design is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It requires careful planning, analysis, testing, and iteration to achieve optimal results. Here are some steps that can help you apply modular product UX design effectively:

• Define your product vision and goals: What problem are you trying to solve? Who are your users? What are their needs and expectations? What are your business objectives? How do you measure success?
• Conduct user research: Who are your users? What are their behaviors, motivations, pain points, goals? How do they use your product or similar products? What are their feedbacks and suggestions?
• Create user personas: Who are your target users? What are their characteristics? What are their needs? What are their frustrations? How do they use your product?
• Define user scenarios: How do your users interact with your product? What are their tasks? What are their contexts? What are their challenges? What are their desired outcomes?
• Map out user journeys: How do your users move through your product? What are the steps they take? What are the touchpoints they encounter? What are the emotions they feel?
• Identify user requirements: What features or functions do your users need or want? How do they prioritize them? How do they relate to your product goals?
• Sketch out possible solutions: How can you meet your user requirements? What are the possible ways to solve their problems or fulfill their needs? How can you leverage existing solutions or best practices?
• Break down solutions into modules: How can you divide your solutions into smaller and simpler units? What are the functions of each module? How do they interact with each other? How do they fit into the overall system?
• Design each module: How does each module look like? What are its components? What are its specifications? What are its rules? How does it behave?
• Test each module: How does each module work? Does it perform its function correctly? Does it meet user expectations? Does it follow the design system?
• Integrate modules into a system: How do you combine modules into a larger system? How do they communicate with each other? How do they align with the user journey?
• Test the system: How does the system work as a whole? Does it meet user needs and goals? Does it provide a consistent and coherent experience? Does it achieve business objectives?
• Iterate based on feedback: How can you improve the system based on user feedback or data analysis? What are the pain points or opportunities for improvement? How can you refine or modify modules or systems accordingly?

Modular design is a powerful technique that can help you create products that are scalable, consistent, and cost-effective. By using modular design, you can break down complex problems into manageable units, reuse existing solutions, and adapt to changing needs.

However, modular design is not a magic bullet. It requires careful planning, analysis, testing, and iteration to ensure optimal results.

As Erika Hall, co-founder of Mule Design and author of “Just Enough Research” and “Conversational Design”, advises: “Don’t fall in love with ideas. Fall in love with problems.”

Additional Reading

• What’s Modularity and How Modular Design is Beneficial: This article defines modularity and modular design and explains how they can help create scalable and consistent products that can adapt to changing needs and contexts.
• Modular Design for Rapid Advances: This article introduces the concept of modular design and its benefits for complex systems analysis. It also provides four design principles for modular design and parallel programming.
• Designing Modular UI Systems Via Style Guide-Driven Development: This article describes how to use style guides to create modular UI systems that are reusable, maintainable, and testable. It also shows some examples of modular UI components and how they can be documented and coded.
• The modern UX grid system: Principles and best practices: This article discusses how grid systems can enhance the UX of a product by creating visual harmony, hierarchy, and alignment. It also covers some types of grids, such as modular, columnar, and hierarchical grids, and how to use them effectively.
• Modular Front-End Development & Design: This article demonstrates how to use a simple approach to modular front-end development and design, based on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It also explains how to organize the code into modules, components, and utilities, and how to use tools like Sass and Gulp to automate the workflow.