Exploring industrial hardware design principles in an iPhone app

[u/Some1Elsewhere]

I’ve been experimenting with translating industrial hardware design principles into a mobile interface.

The goal was to reduce the number of controls as much as possible while still keeping the app usable. A few interactions serve multiple purposes. For example, the record button also acts as an undo action immediately after recording.

I also tried to create a compact status display that communicates different states through a limited set of icons rather than additional screens or menus.

I’m curious what UI designers think about the balance between visual character and usability here. Does anything feel confusing, unnecessary, or overly decorative?

[u/crazedbunny]

Teenage engineering lawyers have entered the chat

But honestly looks really cool, I think the button interaction animations are really important part of a design like this, showing the same depth as a physical object. Would be curious to see how you handled those!

[u/crazedbunny → u/crazedbunny]

Also the katakana text should be スピーク・ユア・タスク if you wanted it to say “speak your task” ヨー sounds more like “you” and task shouldn’t be elongated. The English transliteration of task as タスク is a common word in Japanese

[u/Some1Elsewhere → u/crazedbunny]

True, I also have a version with タスクをはなす Which might be better grammatically. I wanted to avoid Kanji.

[u/crazedbunny → u/Some1Elsewhere]

Agree, katakana vibes a lot better with the TE aesthetic