I redesigned the infamous IOWA App in 30 minutes

How you can (and should) judge product quality by its UI quality.

Which app do you think is the official one? The one on the left. Sorry for the low quality, most photos of it were at an angle. The design on the right took me 30 minutes to re-do based on the one on the left. Of course it can be further improved, but that’s not the point here. It’s to show the minimal amount of effort.

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.