Interview with MIUI Interface Designer: "The History of MIUI9 Design"

Rigo Design — Chinese multifunctional studio, which specializes in the design of hardware and software products, digital production for Web-based companies. It was founded in 2008 in Beijing and in February of 2015 it was bought by Xiaomi. Its services include UX and UI-design interface, design strategy and so on. This studio is popular in interface design sphere in China.

Our colleagues from en.miui.com interviewed Gary, the designer of the interface at Rigo Design, and asked him to tell some stories about the design of famous MIUI 9:

“For designers, it is very important to solve specific user issue. When we are talking about MIUI 8 it was a really hard work to create a superb user interface which will be brighter and more interactive than ever. It includes an internal optimization in accordance with innovation MIUI style of Xiaomi. The great example of this is an animation of shredding paper. It’s about Notes application which liked most of our co-workers. If we compare MIUI 9 and MIUI 8 you may find out that there aren’t any strong differences. The main answer is that beautiful design is long-lasting. Changing for the sake of change is not a good idea. The exception is when you made mistakes from the start.”

The smart app launcher or Tap Plus that are available in the Chinese version of the firmware also were mostly discussed by developers. Only one action — to make a long tap on the screen. After that, you will find on screen relevant information. Moreover, you will be able to split the text paragraph into word segments. This makes it easier for copying and editing. In addition to this, you can make a keywords search."

Also, Gary said that there were a lot of ideas and discussions about this feature at the development stage like supporting apps or the popup windows.

Gary told that before their group joined the MIUI they worked on the variety of IT product designs. And after Xiaomi acquired Rigo Design they concentrated their work on the design of MIUI ROM.

It may seem that it is an easy task to make a quite good design of the interface, but from another side, it is really difficult to make a decision. Especially when we should take into account the feedbacks of million users.

Our colleagues asked Gary who had the most influence in his life, he answered that this person is the founder of Rico Design — Robert.

Gary’s favorite designer is Dieter Rams. Especially his attitude to work. For example, his approach “less but better” and ten principles of good design help their team to avoid any problems and directly move towards the main goal.

Also, the interface designer said that they are working on improving the MIUI. And he believes that many users really enjoy it.