Hey there!

I have just watched this video on Youtube, where the Nothing OS UI is brutally criticized by this person.

Personally, I found very interesting the first thing she said, about the quick settings:

It should be better organized. The two upper buttons (wifi and bluetooth), take up a lot of space in the second swipe, and I personally found to be lacking is that the brightness bar is not on the first swipe of the menu.

I mean:

Many times I tried to access it quickly, but I always have to do another swipe. I don’t know if that thing is customizable or if it is enforced by Android.

And also, why Wifi and bluetooth seem have another button inside? The others buttons once selected, just change their background into white, while wifi and bluetooth have an icon button. I tried so hard to find an explanation, if someone know, please tell me 🤣 is it to visually differentiate?

Let’s continue…

She show us how she would have designed the UI:

I agree with the part about the bad distribution of the hour at the top compared to rest of the tools (like battery, day, wifi etc.).

If we have the hour at the top-left, and icons at the top right, why when we swipe the menu, they go down? In addition, I think she’s right to put the date next to the time. So now we have a balanced bar, as we can see in the previous screenshot.

Although, she share with us, her second swipe of the menu:

And now, we can see that, she has moved the top bar (hour, icons, date…) a little bit down, so the hour and date are bigger. Do you personally like that? I personally think that should be static.

Also, I agree with the overly limited color palette for the wallpapers too. I mean, why can we choose just these 10 colors?

I don’t think that a color picker would be a great idea (something that personally, reminds me of Windows 98), but maybe a more extend palette would be great.

However, I can understand why, I suppose that majority of the people will set a photography of their own cat (like me 😁 ) but It would be cool.

Now, from here, I have to disagree with the rest of the video.

Firstly, I don’t understand very well either when she talks about the problem of monochromatic icons. I mean, it’s just a plugin that you can change, you have also the not fully monochromatic iconography. But yes, they serve to avoid distractions so is obviously that you spend time to select your app 🤔 I mean, you decide, so you’re giving to the user the possibility to choose his own user experience.

Monochromatic:

Mixed:

On the other hand, she repeats over and over again that “Is that really hard to follow your own design style?”.

Well, she refers to convert absolutely ALL the UI in dots, while a basic Design rule is that we have to create contrast, that’s why a brand usually have two differents typographies, many times Serif and Sans Serif, to create that contrast.

Consistency is the key, but without falling into monotony.

I mean, If the logo is made of dots, the calendar date is write by dots, the Icons are made of dots, the clock widget is made of dots… At this point, we would find the typography strange, because we would expect to see it also made of dots because (ironically) it doesn’t follows the consistency of the dots.

But all that, just saturate the structure and the design (below, the UI she showing us)

And the last one… We all want colors, I’m the fist fan of leds. But Imagine to have a phone that light it up like a disco.

You pass to have a modern, accurate and premium design… to a cheapest phone who can buy on whatever phone market on your street, of questionable origin…

So, I launch the same bold remark to this girl:

Is that really hard to not crossing the fine line between bold design and tackiness?

Personally, I will answer yes.

As users, we are really critically and moreover when we have between ours hand a brand which try to distinguish. In that moment, we are super critical and we think how we could a better design.

And in one hand, that’s really cool, I mean we start discussion and we increase the passion of technology and user experience.

But I insists, I like that people show their own vision of the facts because users are the main point of UX/UI. I definitely enjoyed watching this video and see the dedication she had.

What do you think?

    Related discussions

    For me personally, UI/UX is not something that can be made overnight on a whim. So many things to considerate. It’s not only must aestheticly pleasing but functional. Remember that one of the design principle is “form follow function”. That means that a visual must have a function to exist. If not, then dont.

    The dot matrix typeface is hard to read in a quick glance. And one of the main use of homescreen is for quick use. You wont spend a minute looking at the homescreen.

    You’ll open, see the widget for a sec, and proceed to your next activity.

    Unity doesn’t mean you have to use the same visual all over the place. I agree with you that design need contrast to attract your attention. It also made you to not easily feel bored. This contrast is not only applies to design. Photography, architecture, and other form of art as well.

    I do agree with some of her points but some of it are.. hmm

      I don’t like it, those are horrible. Why bringing miui hyperos realmeos coloros into Nothing?? Want miui, go get xiaomi. Plenty of models to choose on anyone’s needs. From entry level, midrange to flagship.

      Please leave Nothing to Nothing team, they’ve made it beautiful and clean.

      I’m happy, only unhappy about camera optimization, needs plenty of work.

      Being clean OS, they do slowly add more useful features. Give time, Nothing OS will be feature rich OS while able to maintain to it’s original concept: being clean, bloatfree and minimal.

      Please don’t become colorOS or MIUI nor OneUI

        Keseven I agree with you nothing os is clean and good it is just starting that’s why see some bugs otherwise it is good and very clean

          I really like the quick settings menu that we have now similar to pixel phones, and the thing you press wi-fi an BT bottom and the becoming white, only missing is missing is brightness bar,

          I wish that nothing os will not be like oxygen os/hyper os/one ui.

          I personally think the design she presented looks generically like other phone UIs

          But for our current UI : Bluetooth and wifi has 2 pages, could we have them swipeable as well when collapsed, agree on the brightness bar.

          Looking forward to OS 3 !

          Palmix Art 🇮🇹 “The brightness bar is not on the first swipe of the menu. Many times I tried to access it quickly, but I always have to do another swipe. I don’t know if that thing is customizable or if it is enforced by Android.”

          That is how it works on all 3 of my devices - 2 swipes needed:

          1. Nothing Phone (1) running Nothing OS 2.6
          2. Pixel 6A running Android 15
          3. OnePlus 8 Pro (running a custom AOSP Android 14 ROM).

          Also noticed that if you swipe down from the status bar when the screen is locked, then you can see brightness slider - and both the NP(1) and 6A do not have an adaptive brightness button.

              Anonymous192 Yeah, when the screen is locked, you have the slider, but many times it happened to me that I needed to change the brightness while I was using it. It’s a pity 🙁

                RohithTony Man, that would be cool too, a little widget for the brightness!! However you already have the left buttons for the volume 🤔

                  Palmix Art 🇮🇹
                  Personally I’m fine with the current UI. The only problems I have are with the brightness bar as you said, I too would like to see one swipe to adjust or a widget (which would be more useful than date widget imo), and with the WiFi/BT toggles which do not let me switch between devices on the go but open the settings instead.

                  That said, I agree that a horizontal time - date thing would look nicer.
                  RGB is really a no go but they could at least let us set the temperature of the Glyph interface (warm/cool).

                      I also found the video quite interesting, similar to other comments, I’m fine with the current UI… it offers something different, you know you’re using Android but, it feels distinctly different yet, it’s not on the opposite end of the scale where it’s mimicking iOS like many Chinese brands do.

                      I do agree with the comments re; the control centre though. I’m a former Huawei user and was spoilt by a comprehensive control centre where you could action most things at a swipe/press.

                      The rest of the video was very much personal preferences. I do see NothingOS as one of the more consistent Android skins and, think that the dot matrix styling is applied in the right areas, at the right times.

                      Finally, don’t get me started on RGB lights… I know Carl has said this wouldn’t happen and I hope it doesn’t. Not once have I felt the need for or, wanted RGB and like you rightfully said, it cheapens the look and the brand.

                        Udin Exactly. People think that is just “drawing” screens or as you said, make it pretty. I thought that she would have comment just ux stuff.

                        Totally agree with you

                        hrry Agree with you too

                        Hites That’s the point! Red magic for example uses RGB color, but the target are gamers so…

                              7 months later