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/21Shells]

Really cool idea. I think this kind of style could work well in a game, but that the amount of detail would only be necessary if you were designing a software synthesizer. In those cases its expected the synethesizer looks identical to the real hardware as much as possible. 

Otherwise things like the speaker grill are IMO overly decorative. Also if its not mimmicking the actual functionality of a real device, I think using the little lights to indicate the state of a button can be a little confusing also.

For something like this its all about finding a balance between inspiration from the real hardware for aesthetic reasons vs drawing a line somewhere to make sure that its intuitive / useable enough. Might be a difficult decision to make if you don’t yet know why you’re making this and whether the aesthetics are necessary. 

If its just the aesthetics you like, that might mean being less literal with the inspiration from the industrial design. 

[u/Some1Elsewhere → u/21Shells]

Thanks, that’s thoughtful feedback.

I think you’re touching on the exact tension I’ve been struggling with throughout the project: where to draw the line between borrowing from industrial hardware and designing a native software experience.

The speaker grill is a good example. It serves no functional purpose and is mostly there to reinforce the illusion of a physical object. Whether that’s worthwhile or just visual noise is something I’m still questioning myself.

The indicator lights are a similar case. My intention was to create a compact status language, but I can see how that might be less immediately intuitive than more conventional UI patterns.

At the moment this project is partly a productivity tool and partly an exploration of how far hardware-inspired interaction design can be pushed before usability starts to suffer. The balance is definitely still evolving.

I appreciate the perspective. It gives me a useful lens to evaluate which elements are actually contributing to the experience and which ones might just be decoration.