Draw the keys
A technical change with design consequences: a lighter app, and themes without per-key artwork.
01Where it started
Popular, dated and losing people.
The keyboard already had a large audience. It also had the problems of a product that had grown fast.
- People were leaving
- A dated, unintuitive experience drove attrition. By 2018 the keyboard had about 10 million users.
- Keys were images
- Image-based keys made the app heavier and slower than it needed to be.
- Little to personalise
- People asked for themes and features that would make the keyboard their own.
- No way to learn
- There was no typing tutorial, even though Bangla has several layouts to choose from.
02My part & the team
Leading design, building with engineering.
I led design for the keyboard and worked closely with engineering on both platforms.
What I did
- User research and synthesis: interviews, surveys, store-review analysis and usability feedback.
- The redesign: user flows, wireframes, prototypes, UI design and interaction.
- A new brand mark and a style guide that became a shared Android and iOS design system.
- Specs, implementation review and iteration with developers after release.
What the team did
- Engineering rebuilt and shipped the keyboard on Android and iOS.
- Product and business owned priorities, pricing and monetisation.
- Growth over these years came from the whole team and the product, not from design alone.
03The brief
A better first impression, and a mark that says Bangla.
The project board sums up the brief in a few lines.
- A better first impression
- Make the experience feel modern and delightful from the first screen.
- A new brand identity
- Replace the abstract icon with a mark that says “Bangla keyboard” at a glance.
- Simpler, guided UX
- Use animation and transitions to guide people through the experience, not to decorate it.
The new mark puts the Bangla letter “র” on a tag above a row of keys. It reads as a keyboard for Bangla at app-icon size, where the old abstract shape didn’t.
04Process
Research to interaction, in six stages.
Six stages, from listening to users to specifying interaction.
Ridmik Keyboard / Redesign process
- 01ResearchInterviews, surveys, store reviews, usability feedback
- 02User flowSetup, typing, learning and personalisation journeys
- 03WireframesStructure before visuals
- 04UI designThe redesigned screens
- 05Style guideShared tokens and components for both platforms
- 06InteractionMotion and transitions that guide
- After releaseEngagement and store reviews fed the next iteration.
Stages taken from the project overview board.
05Learning to type
Teach by doing, and let experts skip.
Most people already know one way to type Bangla. The keyboard should help them with the others, without lectures.
The typing tutorial teaches by doing. It shows a Bangla word, highlights the next keys to press and offers hints when someone gets stuck. A Skip option is always there, because experienced typists shouldn’t be held back.
Explore brings the learning tools together: a Ridmik Key Map that explains case-sensitive and case-insensitive keys, and a Phonetic Tutorial for people moving to phonetic typing.
06A lighter keyboard
Draw the keys instead of picturing them.
The first change people wouldn’t see but would feel.
Moving from image-based keys to drawn keys made the keyboard lighter and faster to render, and it opened the door to themes: once keys are drawn, the colours behind and around them can change without new artwork for every key. No measured speed figure is claimed here.
07Personalisation
A store for themes, with a free way in.
Personalisation was the most requested change, so it got a home of its own.
Themes became a store: presets, people’s own custom themes, and seasonal collections such as World Cup themes. Some themes are paid, with discounts shown clearly, and some can be unlocked by watching ads, so there’s a free path to most of what people want.
Signing in with Google or Apple keeps personal settings and themes with the person, not with one phone.
Store pricing and unlock options are shown as designed; business decisions on pricing belonged to the product team.
08Android & iOS system
One style guide, two platforms.
The style guide stage became a design system shared by Android and iOS.
Both apps share the same foundations (type, colour, spacing and components) while following each platform’s conventions for navigation and controls. The same system later carried across Ridmik’s other products.
09Design decisions
What defined the redesign.
Choices that defined the redesign.
Teach by doing
A short, skippable tutorial on a real keyboard instead of a help page.
A mark that reads at icon size
The new icon says “Bangla keyboard” at a glance, which the abstract one didn’t.
A free path to personalisation
Paid themes sit next to ad-unlocked ones, so personalisation isn’t only for people who pay.
Motion with a job
Transitions guide people through setup and learning; they’re not there to show off.
10Accessibility
Readable keys on every theme.
Targets I’d review the keyboard against today: WCAG 2.2 AA where it applies, plus Android and Apple accessibility guidance. APCA is a supplementary readability check.
- Readable key labels
- Bangla characters need enough size and contrast on every theme.
- Comfortable targets
- Key size and spacing that reduce mis-taps, especially for one-handed use.
- Screen-reader labels
- Keys and controls announced properly by TalkBack and VoiceOver.
- Highlight plus shape
- Tutorial hints use outline and position as well as colour.
- Skippable guidance
- Every tutorial step can be skipped, so it never blocks typing.
- Calm motion
- Transitions stay short and respect reduced-motion settings.
Review targets, not audit results. No formal conformance review is claimed for the 2018–2023 work.
11Outcome & scope
What changed, and who it belongs to.
10M → 165M
Ridmik Keyboard grew from about 10 million users in 2018 to 165 million during my time at Ridmik Labs, keeping an average rating around 4 stars across roughly 383,000 reviews. These are company and product milestones from the portfolio deck and store listings, and they belong to the whole team.
- A redesigned keyboard experience on Android and iOS, from first run to personalisation.
- A new brand mark for the app.
- A typing tutorial and learning tools for Bangla layouts.
- A shared design system, later carried across Ridmik’s other products.
No revenue figures are shown, and no individual metric is attributed to design alone.
Redesigning something millions of people use every day is mostly about what you don’t break. The best changes made the keyboard feel new while every typing habit still worked.