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From Like Buttons to Message Bubbles: The UX Designs You Can’t Use

Designing a new user interface in 2019 is harder than you think

Christie Tang
OneZero

Credit: Soloma_Poppystyle/iStock/Getty Images Plus

YYou’re in the business of selling pizza. Everyone loves pizza. It’s fast and easy. The demand is high. It’s the classic American staple. But you’ve got a ton of competitors, marketing is tougher than you thought, rent is getting higher, the app designs are stale, every week is a 52-week low, and it’s getting harder to differentiate—you know, the typical stuff. So, you think to yourself, “I need to do something nobody has ever done before. Something new, something progressive.” You start brainstorming ideas and come up with a brilliant one that sounds something like, “So then you could view the pizza details and swipe right if you like it and swipe left if you don’t. Kind of like Tinder, but for pizza!”

Yeah, no. You cannot design something like that, because Tinder has a patent on the interaction of swiping right to like and left to dislike. “Okay, okay, fine,” you say to yourself. “That is the hallmark of its entire app, so then just get rid of the swipe feature, and we’ll make a minimum viable product (MVP) solution of just having a ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ button at the bottom.” Tough luck, kid. Tinder has a patent on that, too.

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Responses (29)

What are your thoughts?

My mind is playing this out to a logical conclusion: the largest tech companies could, theoretically, patent the “best” UI patterns, leaving everyone else to be forced to design, well, crap (from the standpoint of usability and delight). Depressing thought.

This is quite a depressing read. Firstly, the vast majority of the above patents are ridiculous, building on (and trying to cash out on) human computer interactions that have been in developing for decades. At a push I would say that 2 are…

Awesome research and write up. Thanks for sharing!