Minimalistic UX: How Removing Elements Improves UX

TODAY, WEBSITES ARE OFTEN CLUTTERED

With Seventeen Different Call-To-Action Buttons.

And So Many Pop-Ups!

These tend to interrupt the visitors before they find what they need.

It feels like you need a manual to find the basic functions, or brand identities trying so hard to communicate everything that they end up saying nothing at all. 

Somewhere along the way, we convinced ourselves that more equals better. 

That if we don't give people every possible option, we're somehow failing them.

But what if the opposite is true? 

What if the most powerful design decisions happen not when we decide what to add, but when we decide what to leave out?

At TDP, we just wrapped up a complete product redesign for Aro - a wellness app helping people reduce screen time.

Who it's for:
A live app with low engagement and hardware dependency that was limiting user growth and daily usage.

What we did:
We eliminated the hardware requirement, introduced digital wellness pillars, and built social features like Circles and shareable achievements to create lasting engagement.

The result:
The redesign was so successful that Aro was acquired by ReclaimWell, with users sharing over 6 badges daily across social platforms.

The best designers often think like museum curators.

There's something almost addictive about adding features to a design. 

Every stakeholder meeting seems to generate a new "what if we also..." and every user feedback session reveals another thing someone wishes was there. 

It feels productive. It feels like we're solving problems, addressing needs, making improvements.

The problem is that every addition creates a tax on everything else. 

Add another button to your interface, and suddenly every other button becomes a little less important. 

Add another message to your marketing, and the core value proposition gets a little more diluted. 

Add another color to your palette, and your brand becomes a little less distinctive.

This is what psychologists call the "paradox of choice." 

The more options we provide, the harder it becomes for people to make any choice at all. 

But in design, the problem runs even deeper than paralysis. When everything is fighting for attention, nothing gets the attention it deserves.

Dieter Rams figured this out decades ago when he was designing products for Braun. 

His famous principle "good design is as little design as possible" wasn't about being lazy or cutting corners. 

It was about recognizing that every element in a design should earn its place. 

If something doesn't actively contribute to the user's goals, it's not neutral - it's actively harmful because it creates noise that makes the important stuff harder to find.

The best designers often think like museum curators.

They understand that showing everything in your collection doesn't make for a better exhibition - it makes for a chaotic mess where nothing gets the attention it deserves. 

Great curators know that the power lies not in what they display, but in what they choose to put in storage.

Instead of asking "What else can we add?" the question becomes "What can we remove without losing anything essential?" 

Instead of "How can we accommodate every request?" it becomes "Which requests align with our core purpose?"

Take Apple's approach to product design. The original iPhone could have had a physical keyboard like BlackBerry. It could have had a stylus like Palm. It could have had a removable battery, expandable storage, and a dozen other features that competitors considered essential. 

But Apple made the radical decision to say no to all of these things in service of a single vision: a device that was primarily about the screen.

The large screen could be the star of the show precisely because it didn't have to compete with a physical keyboard for real estate. 

The touch interface could be intuitive precisely because there wasn't also a stylus creating confusion about the primary interaction method.

Strategic omission requires something that's often in short supply: confidence

It takes confidence to look at a list of requested features and say "no, that doesn't belong here." 

This confidence has to be rooted in a clear understanding of purpose.  

Without this clarity of purpose, you end up making choices based on personal preference, political pressure, or whatever the loudest voice in the room wants. 

But when you have a clear north star, omission becomes strategic rather than random.

Users don't need to think about navigation or search - they just browse and click. 

The strategic omissions created space for the core functionality to shine.

One Of The Biggest Challenges In Embracing Strategic Omission Is Our Cultural Discomfort With Emptiness.  

We see white space and want to fill it. We see a simple interface and worry that it looks "unfinished." 

This anxiety is understandable. Empty space feels like wasted opportunity. 

A simple message feels like you might be missing something important. 

A clean interface feels like you might not be giving users enough options.

But what looks like emptiness to the designer often feels like breathing room to the user. 

Google's homepage is the perfect example of this principle in action. 

By removing everything else, they made it crystal clear what their site was for. Users didn't have to think about what to do or where to click. 

The purpose was immediately obvious, and the experience was frictionless. 

The strategic omission of everything else made the search functionality more powerful, not less.

Here's something counterintuitive: constraints often lead to more creativity, not less.

When you limit your palette to three colors instead of thirty, you have to be more thoughtful about how you use each one. 

When you limit your interface to five key actions instead of fifty, you have to be more strategic about prioritization. 

When you limit your message to one core idea instead of ten, you have to be more precise about communication.

This is why Twitter's character limit was such a powerful creative constraint. 

It forced people to distill their thoughts to their essence. It eliminated the rambling and filler that plague longer-form content. 

The constraint made expression more focused and often more impactful.

So How Do You Actually Implement Strategic Omission In Your Work?

It starts with developing a "philosophy of no" - a set of criteria for deciding what doesn't belong.

First, you need clarity about your core purpose. 

What is the one thing your design absolutely must accomplish? 

Everything else is secondary. This isn't to say that secondary goals don't matter, but they shouldn't be allowed to compromise the primary objective.

Second, you need to understand your user's cognitive load. 

Every element you add requires mental processing power. Every choice you offer requires decision-making energy. Every message you include requires attention. 

Make sure each addition is worth the cost.

Third, you need to embrace the concept of progressive disclosure. 

Instead of showing everything at once, reveal complexity gradually as users need it. 

The initial experience can be simple and focused, with additional options available for those who seek them out.

Finally, you need to develop the discipline to kill your darlings. 

Just because something is well-designed or took a lot of effort to create doesn't mean it belongs in the final product. 

Sometimes the best design decision is to save a great idea for a different project where it can be the star instead of a supporting player.

As our digital environments become increasingly cluttered, the brands and products that embrace strategic omission will have a significant advantage.

Users are craving simplicity, clarity, and focus. 

This doesn't mean everything should be minimal for minimalism's sake. 

Strategic omission is about removing things that don't serve your purpose, not about following a particular aesthetic. 

A maximalist design can still embrace strategic omission by ensuring that every element of the complexity serves the overall goal.

The key is intentionality. 

Every element should have a reason for being there. 

Every omission should be a deliberate choice rather than an oversight. 

The goal isn't to make things as simple as possible - it's to make them as simple as necessary to achieve your objectives.

When we remove the distractions, the essential elements can finally get the attention they deserve.

When we stop trying to be everything to everyone, we can start being something meaningful to someone. 

When we have the courage to say no to good ideas, we create space for great ones to flourish.

The most powerful design decisions aren't about what you add - they're about what you have the wisdom to leave out. 

Today, when the world is constantly asking for more, the most radical thing you can do is offer less. 

But make sure that less is exactly what people need.

Keep designing,