It’s an Android device?
It’s got a blue balance?
It’s got a Pulse Graph?
It’s got 5 buttons along the bottom?
The last one is the closest hint
The slide-out / hamburger menu for Android might disappear this year!
This says a fair bit for the navigation plans on Monzo, keeping both Android and iOS more inline with each other perhaps. But it means Monzo seems to be aiming to refine the user experience into 5 easily accessible, easily clickable tabs across the bottom of the app.
How does everyone feel about this (potential) change?
Love it as I’m an iOS user so I prefer this iOS-style layout, but at the same time I like apps who follow the platform’s conventions (in this case to be more like Android) so not sure how I feel about it…
Blue text on dark background is what people did on the internet in the late 90s. It didn’t work as it’s difficult to read.
When Zendesk released their iPad app (original iPad) they used mid-grey icons on dark-grey background. Anything below 50% screen brightness and you couldn’t see the icons on the screen.
There are some important usability issues here. I suspect that this has come about from having a design team that is predominantly young.
There’s no guarantee that this is what Monzo will do, it’s just a mockup
And I was just poking fun with my comment
I agree, the current white on blue looks great IMO, they should stick with that! The shade of blue used makes me feel like it might turn that colour upon interaction, i.e. it matches the blue dot on the Pulse Graph! So it could be "your balance was £888.97 at point y and when it’s not being interacted with, it might be white
Just complete guesses at this stage - but Monzo will see all of our feedback and take in onboard
It’s just that I see the same mistakes being made now that we’re made 20 years ago. I can only imagine that more experienced (older) people are poorly represented in the development of the product.
Obvious things are no app/tab title, which makes it look very odd (could just be a photoshop snafu).
If you get rid of the drawer you lose a place to put settings. Account is already cluttered and probably needs breaking down (into 3 tabs, account, card, pots) and monzo is going to add budgeting, statements… Some of what’s in accounts now could be put in the drawer as it’s not primary UI (you’re not requesting your pin or changing your overdraft every day, for example) and simplify it back to 2* screens.
TBH It’s suffering a bit from adding features slowly. If monzo already had all the things that they were going to add they could make a good UI that worked well straight away, but what has happened is they’ve started with a simple topup card UI and bolted things on bit by bit, and it’s in danger of running away with them a bit…
* pots are going to get a lot more complex and will need their own interactions esp. if they get virtual card numbers.
Has the number of tabs been considered for device size?
5 tabs can get pretty tight on older iPhones / small Android devices, I’ve recently had to re-adjust some of my own apps to use menus to overcome this issue.
I like it, iOS users haven’t ever had a burger menu & it’s not caused any issues for me I expect removing that menu will help with discoverability of features, which is why the navigation menu was removed too
I don’t think we need to worry about the blue on a dark background, we know that Monzo checks for accessibility issues in their designs. So if it’s a problem, I’m sure they’ll change it.
What I would always recommend is to not try to judge contrast on a mockup screenshot you’re probably seeing from a computer. Phone screens are quite particular and much more vulnerable to changes of lighting conditions and glares, so we test our designs on devices and that’s how we evaluate if something is “good enough” (not strong WCAG-style checks yet I’m afraid). Maybe in the future
I agree the account tab is starting to get very busy. I know it’s old skool but having a list of accounts and pots as the home screen feels more natural. Then dig into the account/pot you want. Or force touch/swipe etc for quick info. Less is more
I’m afraid I find your comment quite dismissive. Just because you don’t perceive it to be a problem does not mean this sort of design is not a problem for many users of technology.
I thought Monzo worked hard to be inclusive?
I was viewing it on an iPhone X, possibly one of the better screens about at the moment. Fact remains, dark blue on a dark grey or black background is not good.
Is this something you’ll be required to implement to launch in the US? When I lived in the US, I worked at a university and this was a massive deal for legal compliance, but I’m not sure if that’s the law generally - or only because we received government money (so we had to comply with the whole VPAT thing).
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