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I redesigned the infamous IOWA App in 30 minutes
How you can (and should) judge product quality by its UI quality.
Last weekend everyone was talking about Iowa. I usually wouldn’t bother covering the controversy here if not for two things. First of all, even though I currently live in Sopot, Poland, Iowa is a significant part of my life. Back in 1999, I finished high-school in Marion, IA (with not the best grades, lol), and that was a life-changing time for me. A nerdy web-designer/developer, out in Iowa, trying to fit in (and mostly failing).
So I do feel connected to Iowa as it’s a part of who I am.
When I saw some leaked images from that infamous app, I realized that it’s yet another example of something I’ve been talking about A LOT.
Bad UI often means a bad product.
While the UX crowd wasn’t too pleased by my approach before, I still stand by it. There are edge cases in which a professional team of developers built a sophisticated app for pros. It can be poorly done on the front-end side and still do its job well.
But in most cases UI is that one area of UX that is a dead giveaway of overall quality. You can’t really judge information architecture, flows, or successful, applied research in a product without knowing all about it.
A lousy UI we can see and recognize right away.
It’s even more apparent with the Iowa app because it’s supposedly an official product. I know the political divide is quite big nowadays. Still, as both parties are primarily American, maybe they could … you know — use the US Web Design System in their official products?
It was created for a reason (and is quite good, actually). Sure — it’s for the “web,” but an app like that isn’t that complex that it couldn’t have been recreated using it.
