The Comeback of Fun in Visual Design(applypixels.com)
applypixels.com
The Comeback of Fun in Visual Design
https://applypixels.com/blog/comeback
192 comments
Honestly, I was actually excited by flat design when I first saw it, but that was on Windows Phone 7. And WP7 had an exceptionally rigid and consistent approach to flat design. If something was colored, it was a button. If you wanted to color something that wasn't a button? Too bad for you. Basically, on WP7 you didn't get to "design" at all - the UI framework basically said "this is what your widgets look like, if you don't like it you can make software for a different operating system.
Ironically, I think "bringing back the fun" is what destroyed flat design, because people who wanted to make their designs "fun" destroyed the design-language.
Overall, I don't care if you go flat or otherwise - I want the WP7 attitude in my software. The platform provides a rigid design-language, and the individual applications do not deviate from it. Unfortunately, web is fundamentally a platform designed for styled documents and not GUIs so we don't have that kind of standardization available, and the web is the center of modern design.
Ironically, I think "bringing back the fun" is what destroyed flat design, because people who wanted to make their designs "fun" destroyed the design-language.
Overall, I don't care if you go flat or otherwise - I want the WP7 attitude in my software. The platform provides a rigid design-language, and the individual applications do not deviate from it. Unfortunately, web is fundamentally a platform designed for styled documents and not GUIs so we don't have that kind of standardization available, and the web is the center of modern design.
Windows Phone had amazing human interface guidelines for hand-held touch devices. I still believe that Live Tiles are unmatched as a home screen pattern.
> The platform provides a rigid design-language, and the individual applications do not deviate from it
The problem here is twofold:
1. Apps actually deviate a lot from the guidelines for their platform. A lot of posts from grumpy.website et al. concern apps (even first-party ones!), not just websites. For instance, title bars that are undraggable/hidden/used as toolbars are a worrying trend.
2. The design language itself may be flawed, so following it blindly would result in a worse UX. (See: Material design and its weird, obnoxious floating button)
> The platform provides a rigid design-language, and the individual applications do not deviate from it
The problem here is twofold:
1. Apps actually deviate a lot from the guidelines for their platform. A lot of posts from grumpy.website et al. concern apps (even first-party ones!), not just websites. For instance, title bars that are undraggable/hidden/used as toolbars are a worrying trend.
2. The design language itself may be flawed, so following it blindly would result in a worse UX. (See: Material design and its weird, obnoxious floating button)
Can’t wait for the flat design trend to return in 4-5 years after this light nudge towards flat + a little depth, leads us right back to yellow legal pads with faux leather binding, but all the elements look flatter.
There’s precious little “new frontier” to chase for 2D screens design. Small touches like expanded drag, swipe, etc would be nice. Designing towards doing not fostering emotional attachment to design. The epistemology has come unhinged from its ontology for wankery of theory sake and here we are looking to escape it. It’s no longer serving the true purpose of the gadget, to do utilitarian work. We’re bored with flat and they need to keep us attached emotionally, so here’s our new season of designs!
I’d prefer we return to utilitarian UI of Win2k, OS9, so I can get a job done and not want to be “in love” with a screen
There’s precious little “new frontier” to chase for 2D screens design. Small touches like expanded drag, swipe, etc would be nice. Designing towards doing not fostering emotional attachment to design. The epistemology has come unhinged from its ontology for wankery of theory sake and here we are looking to escape it. It’s no longer serving the true purpose of the gadget, to do utilitarian work. We’re bored with flat and they need to keep us attached emotionally, so here’s our new season of designs!
I’d prefer we return to utilitarian UI of Win2k, OS9, so I can get a job done and not want to be “in love” with a screen
If you look deeper it’s the exact opposite. “Non-flat” design is utilitarian. Win2k, NextStep, Amiga, OS9, all used skeuomorphism and visual affordable in a very straight-forward fashion.
You've hit the nail perfectly with most of those points.
For all its faults, the older styles of UI and icons made better use of screen space and conveyed much more information to the user. That should always have priority over a "designer" or "artist" imposing a "style" on the system. Any UI is meant to facilitate work, not create work in trying to understand whatever new trend.
It's quite an uphill struggle, but I've managed to salvage some better UI work from the past on my present GNU/Linux desktop (my loathing for flat and padded knows no bounds). But I'd prefer it if the user at least had the option of a coloured, 3d-textured UI in modern applications. Life itself is 3D, we should once again embrace that on the screen.
For all its faults, the older styles of UI and icons made better use of screen space and conveyed much more information to the user. That should always have priority over a "designer" or "artist" imposing a "style" on the system. Any UI is meant to facilitate work, not create work in trying to understand whatever new trend.
It's quite an uphill struggle, but I've managed to salvage some better UI work from the past on my present GNU/Linux desktop (my loathing for flat and padded knows no bounds). But I'd prefer it if the user at least had the option of a coloured, 3d-textured UI in modern applications. Life itself is 3D, we should once again embrace that on the screen.
Designer rant. I've been a computer user for 35 years, developer for 25 years (10 full-time professionally), *nix user for 20 years, and am currently in a degree program as a designer, and I've got to say that I disagree entirely. I think you're conflating your personal taste with functional design, and then again conflating functional design with styling and decoration. Interface design principles— as a subset of industrial design— have been theorized about, extensively tested, and refined for decades. Stylistic trends in visual representations of ideas in icons, etc. are much less clearcut.
At least in good quality commercial software, I can assure you that a designer's primary concern is usability. Visual cohesion and hierarchy, the flow of the eye around the screen, determining what a user actually needs to see and interact with during a task, and moving unnecessary elements to different views are all valuable tools a designer has to make a program more usable. They aren't merely stylists imposing trendy visuals on otherwise entirely usable software, and are certainly not "artists."
However, open-source interfaces are sometimes created by inexperienced enthusiasts or developers trying to "make it look nice" rather than experienced designers. Projects often don't impose the same quality control for interface design decisions as they do for code design decisions. That might lead some "artists" or "designers" to do things that designers (sans-quotes) should be doing. Designers should be more involved in open-source projects and open-source projects should court design contributions and stop downplaying the importance of good interface design.
Most users simply don't share your tolerance (preference?) for visually crowded interfaces that aim to cram as many elements on a screen as you can possibly fit with little editing or regard for what users actually 'need' on a screen for a given task. Your citing old school Linux UIs as a high point in UI design is portrays a perspective that doesn't have a ton in common with a typical user.
At least in good quality commercial software, I can assure you that a designer's primary concern is usability. Visual cohesion and hierarchy, the flow of the eye around the screen, determining what a user actually needs to see and interact with during a task, and moving unnecessary elements to different views are all valuable tools a designer has to make a program more usable. They aren't merely stylists imposing trendy visuals on otherwise entirely usable software, and are certainly not "artists."
However, open-source interfaces are sometimes created by inexperienced enthusiasts or developers trying to "make it look nice" rather than experienced designers. Projects often don't impose the same quality control for interface design decisions as they do for code design decisions. That might lead some "artists" or "designers" to do things that designers (sans-quotes) should be doing. Designers should be more involved in open-source projects and open-source projects should court design contributions and stop downplaying the importance of good interface design.
Most users simply don't share your tolerance (preference?) for visually crowded interfaces that aim to cram as many elements on a screen as you can possibly fit with little editing or regard for what users actually 'need' on a screen for a given task. Your citing old school Linux UIs as a high point in UI design is portrays a perspective that doesn't have a ton in common with a typical user.
It wouldn't surprise me if the periodic stylistic changes are analogous to fashion industry periodic makeovers, apparently a tool to keep users engaged and purchasing gadgets (plus a lot of sociological reasons) -- not necessarily for superiority to what came before in any absolute sense.
I bet every serious design change aims to alleviate some of the pains that the previous design was producing. I bet it's always an honest "let's make it right this time" attempt.
But every new design also contains certain compromises, and also is found to has pain points that have not been anticipated.
So the cycle continues.
But every new design also contains certain compromises, and also is found to has pain points that have not been anticipated.
So the cycle continues.
On the level of the designers I agree -- each designer is without doubt doing what he thinks is best, but on the larger scale that prompts redesign in the first place, I'm skeptical.
For example, would it be acceptable/comfortable for the designer to conclude "Everything is fine as is, we've done a pretty good job last time around, let's ship it like it is." ? If not that reflects a systemic bias to introduce changes in the name of changing.
For example, would it be acceptable/comfortable for the designer to conclude "Everything is fine as is, we've done a pretty good job last time around, let's ship it like it is." ? If not that reflects a systemic bias to introduce changes in the name of changing.
Absolutely. As is the case with architectural styles, features and forms in footwear, clothing materials, popular branding color pallets and all sorts of other things like that, graphical interface norms certainly follow trends. Skeuomorphism, for example.
>Most users simply don't share your tolerance (preference?) for visually crowded interfaces that aim to cram as many elements on a screen as you can possibly fit with little editing or regard for what users actually 'need' on a screen for a given task.
I don't think anyone has a preference for needlessly crammed UIs. But the question is what you prioritise when a task really does benefit from seeing a lot of information at a glance.
There's an easy choice. There's a hard choice. And there's an ugly choice.
The easy choice is to "clean up" the interface and just remove stuff even if it makes the interface less useful. Apparently, that's a popular choice with designers. It can often be justified by pointing to "most users", because that creates a statistical bias toward less demanding requirements.
The hard (and expensive) choice is to think deeply about data visualisation, gain a detailed understanding of the task at hand to the point where the designer has to become a user themselves, and communicate with the most demanding users until you get something functional and not crammed or until you learn what customisation options are needed.
When the hard choice fails or isn't an option for economic reasons, that's when only ugly choices remain, and that's when I would rather have a developer who is intimately familiar with the task come up with a UI that is at least fit for purpose.
I don't think anyone has a preference for needlessly crammed UIs. But the question is what you prioritise when a task really does benefit from seeing a lot of information at a glance.
There's an easy choice. There's a hard choice. And there's an ugly choice.
The easy choice is to "clean up" the interface and just remove stuff even if it makes the interface less useful. Apparently, that's a popular choice with designers. It can often be justified by pointing to "most users", because that creates a statistical bias toward less demanding requirements.
The hard (and expensive) choice is to think deeply about data visualisation, gain a detailed understanding of the task at hand to the point where the designer has to become a user themselves, and communicate with the most demanding users until you get something functional and not crammed or until you learn what customisation options are needed.
When the hard choice fails or isn't an option for economic reasons, that's when only ugly choices remain, and that's when I would rather have a developer who is intimately familiar with the task come up with a UI that is at least fit for purpose.
I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but this is an incredibly glib oversimplification of design. It's pretty pervasive too, especially in FOSS, which is why FOSS interfaces often suck so bad.
Not all coding is software design, and not arrangement of elements in an interface is interface design. If someone is taking an interface and making it "look nice" by removing beneficial components, then what they are doing is not design. Design is a process and a mentality, not a singular activity.
What you describe as the hard choice is merely a point (not even an extreme one) on the spectrum of what constitutes interface design. Broadly speaking, the first step, always, is to figure out what the user's goals are, to whatever extent possible. You might be able to do in-depth user research with focus groups and eye-tracking and put together user stories with A/B testing etc. etc. etc. You might only be able to do some personal research and play around with the software a bit and draw some diagrams. The second step is to figure out how you can help your users accomplish those goals most effectively through the arrangement and functionality of the on-screen elements. Without your primary concern being what the user actually needs, you're just decorating, or maybe organizing.
Reducing the amount of data on a screen isn't a end in itself. If it contributes to the user performing their task better, then great. If it inhibits it, it's the wrong choice. Any person with formal design training should be perfectly comfortable arranging a large amount of complex elements and information on a screen in a comprehensible way. See magazines, train timetables, newspapers, etc.
Not all coding is software design, and not arrangement of elements in an interface is interface design. If someone is taking an interface and making it "look nice" by removing beneficial components, then what they are doing is not design. Design is a process and a mentality, not a singular activity.
What you describe as the hard choice is merely a point (not even an extreme one) on the spectrum of what constitutes interface design. Broadly speaking, the first step, always, is to figure out what the user's goals are, to whatever extent possible. You might be able to do in-depth user research with focus groups and eye-tracking and put together user stories with A/B testing etc. etc. etc. You might only be able to do some personal research and play around with the software a bit and draw some diagrams. The second step is to figure out how you can help your users accomplish those goals most effectively through the arrangement and functionality of the on-screen elements. Without your primary concern being what the user actually needs, you're just decorating, or maybe organizing.
Reducing the amount of data on a screen isn't a end in itself. If it contributes to the user performing their task better, then great. If it inhibits it, it's the wrong choice. Any person with formal design training should be perfectly comfortable arranging a large amount of complex elements and information on a screen in a comprehensible way. See magazines, train timetables, newspapers, etc.
100% with you. I absolutely hate the material design, it's the least intuitive way to use a computer. Paired with touch-first interfaces it's one of the worst thing to happen to computers.
I don't hate material design itself, because there's plenty of guidelines for condensed content. It's just that web designers and app artists don't seem to understand that not everything needs whitespace for miles.
A condensed table in material design strikes a nice balance between whitespace and information density in my opinion. It's just sad that nobody uses it.
I'm also that person that has their DPI set to "small" on my phone though. I bought a phone with nearly 6 inches of screen diagonal and I could barely see any more information on it then on my old 3.5" phone from almost a decade ago. Cranked it down in the setting to just above the point where apps start displaying tablet UI on my phone and I've been very happy with it.
We need to take away design from artists and hand it back to specialised UI designers in my opinion. It'd make phones a lot easier to use.
The problem I see with abolishing material design is that a whole range of elderly people have now gotten used to it. Changing all the layouts for apps and websites would quickly lead to a disaster on the scale of Windows 8 for those who can barely grasp technology as it is. I'd much rather keep the waste of whitespace if I couldn't chat with my grandma otherwise.
A condensed table in material design strikes a nice balance between whitespace and information density in my opinion. It's just sad that nobody uses it.
I'm also that person that has their DPI set to "small" on my phone though. I bought a phone with nearly 6 inches of screen diagonal and I could barely see any more information on it then on my old 3.5" phone from almost a decade ago. Cranked it down in the setting to just above the point where apps start displaying tablet UI on my phone and I've been very happy with it.
We need to take away design from artists and hand it back to specialised UI designers in my opinion. It'd make phones a lot easier to use.
The problem I see with abolishing material design is that a whole range of elderly people have now gotten used to it. Changing all the layouts for apps and websites would quickly lead to a disaster on the scale of Windows 8 for those who can barely grasp technology as it is. I'd much rather keep the waste of whitespace if I couldn't chat with my grandma otherwise.
Not saying material design is great, but it's a great step up from Holo UI and anything before that in Android.
I just dislike that it became so ubiquitous now and it's a train wreck on desktop
I just dislike that it became so ubiquitous now and it's a train wreck on desktop
Personally I went through the opposite process. I was a huge fan of Android up to and including KitKat, and I thought Holo was great. My enthusiasm for the entire platform disappeared as soon as Lollipop came out with the dreadful new Material UI. Even with themes I just hated using it on every level and eventually switched to an iPhone.
Material UI and iOS both look more similar than ever. I'm not sure if aesthetic would be the reason to go for an iPhone
It was a lot of things around that release. The look, the feel of the "cards" everywhere, the deprecation of power-user features in the name of security (like full SD card read/write access for apps). Totally the right trade for a dumbed-down-but-safe mass-market OS, but that's not why I liked Android. When presented a wannabe iPhone I prefer the real thing :p
I didn't feel that way then but lately I actually felt the same :)
The original material design spec was a lot more layered than what it’s turned into.
I agree with all your points. However, Big Sur is going to be very, very, very bad accessibility-wise.
The entire interface is washed out. There's little to no distinction between selected items. Translucency breaks readability of text. And so on and so forth.
Some examples:
- https://twitter.com/krzyzanowskim/status/1275469783488696323
- https://twitter.com/lunasorcery/status/1275237073625198592
- https://twitter.com/Freerunnering/status/1275832747895009283
The entire interface is washed out. There's little to no distinction between selected items. Translucency breaks readability of text. And so on and so forth.
Some examples:
- https://twitter.com/krzyzanowskim/status/1275469783488696323
- https://twitter.com/lunasorcery/status/1275237073625198592
- https://twitter.com/Freerunnering/status/1275832747895009283
One would think hundreds of thousands of dollars per year would buy people with a few critical thinking skills. The second example is unforgivable.
Oof, that was painful. Not only is the low contrast bad for accessibility, the unbalanced X paddings are just wrong.. Something must be amiss in their QA if this was allowed to reach public release.
There's no way that second screenshot is WCAG 2.0 contrast compliant.
I'm sure Apple's response is that you can turn on high contrast mode in accessibility settings.
...and my problem with that argument is that high contrast mode looks aesthetically terrible. So basically, only people with great eyesight get to appreciate aesthetically-pleasing UIs.
Obviously, some people just have very bad eyesight, and there comes a point when you need to say "screw aesthetics, here's something you can actually see." But, the less people who need to resort to that, the better.
...and my problem with that argument is that high contrast mode looks aesthetically terrible. So basically, only people with great eyesight get to appreciate aesthetically-pleasing UIs.
Obviously, some people just have very bad eyesight, and there comes a point when you need to say "screw aesthetics, here's something you can actually see." But, the less people who need to resort to that, the better.
> Buttons
It's really hard explaining to my grandma what's tappable on her iPad when everything's not just flat, but buttons aren't even marked in a way that suggests you can interact with them.
It's really hard explaining to my grandma what's tappable on her iPad when everything's not just flat, but buttons aren't even marked in a way that suggests you can interact with them.
That's probably the biggest design flaw with many UIs - no visual distinction between what will accept touches/clicks and what won't.
The real problem isn't necessarily flat vs skeuomorphism - it's the representations that are not really representative to everyone.
Try "Click that icon with the floppy disk to save." with a new user.
Try "Click that icon with the floppy disk to save." with a new user.
> it's the representations that are not really representative to everyone.
That's true of virtually every graphical representation in a computer application. Save icon? How about folders? Where I'm from, folders (the physical item) never took off. Even today, we use a sort of slimmed-down binder for small collections of documents. For millions of people, myself included, the folders in Windows 95 and Windows 98 were the first ones we ever saw. That never prevented anyone from learning how to use them, or figuring out what the "Open..." button does.
So yeah, "Click the folder button to open" never worked, for the same reason -- no one had ever seen a folder. But the button was visually distinctive enough that you could say "click the yellow button in the toolbar, it's way up there on the left".
Very few icons are really globally unambiguous (and I still think designers in the early/mid-'90s really had the right idea when they just put the frickin' text next to, or below the damn icon). But making all icons look basically the same makes an already difficult situation even worse.
That's true of virtually every graphical representation in a computer application. Save icon? How about folders? Where I'm from, folders (the physical item) never took off. Even today, we use a sort of slimmed-down binder for small collections of documents. For millions of people, myself included, the folders in Windows 95 and Windows 98 were the first ones we ever saw. That never prevented anyone from learning how to use them, or figuring out what the "Open..." button does.
So yeah, "Click the folder button to open" never worked, for the same reason -- no one had ever seen a folder. But the button was visually distinctive enough that you could say "click the yellow button in the toolbar, it's way up there on the left".
Very few icons are really globally unambiguous (and I still think designers in the early/mid-'90s really had the right idea when they just put the frickin' text next to, or below the damn icon). But making all icons look basically the same makes an already difficult situation even worse.
Just my anecdote...
The folder metaphor helped me grasp what was going on. The first computers I spent significant time with were BBCs. They had two filesystems: DFS and ADFS (I think). The Advanced Disk Filing System had folders, but all the documentation I found called them "files". Files could point to files and make a tree of files. 11 year old me just gave up on this. Why would you want a tree of files? Why should a file link to a file...? Nonsense.
Folders (in Gem and Windows) made MUCH more sense. Aaah... it's for organising ideas. Bingo!
The folder metaphor helped me grasp what was going on. The first computers I spent significant time with were BBCs. They had two filesystems: DFS and ADFS (I think). The Advanced Disk Filing System had folders, but all the documentation I found called them "files". Files could point to files and make a tree of files. 11 year old me just gave up on this. Why would you want a tree of files? Why should a file link to a file...? Nonsense.
Folders (in Gem and Windows) made MUCH more sense. Aaah... it's for organising ideas. Bingo!
Yeah, things were very bad for 10 year-old me: in English, the slimmed-down binder we use around here for, well, filing, is called a file. It made absolutely zero sense that "a folder is a collection of files" and "a file is a document". We didn't use folders, and a real-life file usually had several documents.
It was pretty stupid but it made sense on its own after a while.
It was pretty stupid but it made sense on its own after a while.
It's a visually distinct symbol that a child can quickly learn to recognize, and generalize to other contexts.
You can do a lot worse.
You can do a lot worse.
I'm actually genuinely curious if young people have an issue with the floppy disk icon. I feel like at this point it's meant "save" longer than it was actually physically in use.
For the first time, about two weeks ago, I told someone to click the blue floppy disk to save and they said “what’s a floppy disk?”
I’m only in my mid twenties and that even made me almost say “what the hell did you just say?” out loud.
I’m only in my mid twenties and that even made me almost say “what the hell did you just say?” out loud.
Icons are always abstractions. Their purpose is to succinctly distinguish one thing from another. In isolation they are sometimes disconnected from the original meaning, particularly if the original meaning was an abstract idea rather than a concrete object.
Are you bothered that “A” no longer means “cattle” because that is where it started.
In the original GUI interfaces you had a combination of icons where space was tight and menus with functions represented by words. That made a lot of sense when very few people had experience with how computers work. Now that more people are familiar with how they work it is not surprising that menus are de-emphasized.
Are you bothered that “A” no longer means “cattle” because that is where it started.
In the original GUI interfaces you had a combination of icons where space was tight and menus with functions represented by words. That made a lot of sense when very few people had experience with how computers work. Now that more people are familiar with how they work it is not surprising that menus are de-emphasized.
This. Most critics here seem to be thinking of "how it used to be" in the good old days, without considering it from the eyes of new users currently being introduced to computers and how they might perceive things.
The "flat design" we've had for the past decade really is flat design, but the dubbing of what preceded it as "skeuomorphism" was a misnomer, in most cases.
In theory, an old "save" icon would look like a floppy disk (or perhaps a picture of a red tape-recorder "button") whereas a modern, flat "save" icon would be the word "SAVE".
In practice, if a button is labelled "SAVE", but in beautifully shaded and embossed typography, it too is "skeuomorphic", while some ugly disk-drive symbol, in the flat style of highway sign, is acceptably "flat".
A decade ago, most popular software did not abuse skeuomorphism. It was primarily great masses of iPhone crap apps, and four or five, widely talked-about, Scott Forstall iOS projects.
Like others in this thread are saying, I don't care much whether the software I use is "fun", but I do want it to be beautiful and intuitive. "Flat design" has been bad in that regard, and primarily as a reaction to a minority of apps looked like toasters or radios.
In theory, an old "save" icon would look like a floppy disk (or perhaps a picture of a red tape-recorder "button") whereas a modern, flat "save" icon would be the word "SAVE".
In practice, if a button is labelled "SAVE", but in beautifully shaded and embossed typography, it too is "skeuomorphic", while some ugly disk-drive symbol, in the flat style of highway sign, is acceptably "flat".
A decade ago, most popular software did not abuse skeuomorphism. It was primarily great masses of iPhone crap apps, and four or five, widely talked-about, Scott Forstall iOS projects.
Like others in this thread are saying, I don't care much whether the software I use is "fun", but I do want it to be beautiful and intuitive. "Flat design" has been bad in that regard, and primarily as a reaction to a minority of apps looked like toasters or radios.
> Not hovering everything for five minutes until I can figure out what I can click
I really like the way material addresses this : any clickable element should use the primary color of your app. This way, no guesswork. Button, switches, icons, links, they all use the same action color so if something uses it, you know it has to be clickable.
I really like the way material addresses this : any clickable element should use the primary color of your app. This way, no guesswork. Button, switches, icons, links, they all use the same action color so if something uses it, you know it has to be clickable.
Except that every app can have its own "primary" colour, so you have to learn as many rules as you have apps, instead of one if a button would just look like a button.
it is not exactly hard to spot what the primary color of an app is...
I admit to the same feeling. I like akeuomorphism .. but as with most, we probably got carried away a bit. What I liked about the flat design era (not flat design itself) was the typography - you could suddenly use any typeface you wanted because displays were all retina! What I want is some kind of wabesabe design ethic that have the richness of texture and flavour (which is part of what the OP is referring to as "fun" I suppose). The digital world has been getting incredibly dull and monotonic these past several years.
> you could suddenly use any typeface you wanted because displays were all retina
You're thinking only of Apple land, right? Most displays in the world are still 1366x768 and 1920x1080, and huge fonts and widgets everywhere is exactly what I'm not going to miss about this era.
You're thinking only of Apple land, right? Most displays in the world are still 1366x768 and 1920x1080, and huge fonts and widgets everywhere is exactly what I'm not going to miss about this era.
On mobile devices. My recent two (relatively) cheap ($200 range) phones have both been retina .. but yeah apple drove the retina evolution and typography benefited from that greatly I think .. on mobile devices.
> Amiga's 1024x768 screen
What Amiga did you have?
What Amiga did you have?
You could technically get 1024x768 (with really bad flickering) on anything with an AGA. Check out e.g. https://aminet.net/package/driver/moni/WBHacksAGA or https://aminet.net/package/driver/moni/HighGFX40_6 . The only high-res Amiga I saw at the time was an Amiga 4000 (it wasn't mine, but I had pretty much unlimited access to one at $parental_unit's workplace, where they had some fancy multimedia lab that generally went unused), but I expect the Amiga 1200 could do it, too. The flickering was pretty terrible but I was a kid and I had good eyes :).
HighGFX was actually popular (and useful) enough that it caused a bunch of "flickerfixer" hardware to sprout in the mid/late 90s but I've never used/seen one.
HighGFX was actually popular (and useful) enough that it caused a bunch of "flickerfixer" hardware to sprout in the mid/late 90s but I've never used/seen one.
Amiga 1200 with AGA chipset, maybe?
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_1200 :
> 800×600i, 1024×768i (not officially supported)
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_1200 :
> 800×600i, 1024×768i (not officially supported)
Anydesk for iOS is a thing, my days of explaining GUIs over the phone are over.
artsyca(3)
People sometimes forget that the move to flat design was not entirely arbitrary and driven by fashion, it was driven by shifting technology and usage.
Sure, fashion played a role, but in this case the main driver was the need to support devices of different resolutions. Scalability implies vectors, which implies shapes, fills, and strokes rather than bitmap assets.
As a designer who made "skeuomorphic" interfaces before the shift, supporting even a couple of different device sizes with hundreds of different PNG slices had already gotten unsustainable by 2010, and moving to a vector-based workflow was a breath of fresh air.
The pendulum did swing a little too far: some of the early human interface guidelines were wary of the concept of lighting (gradients and shadows). But, realistically, that was unworkable, and those guidelines changed because nobody followed them.
"Flat design" as a moment was actually pretty short. Later iterations on the concepts explored during that moment, such as Material, were actually thoughtful and workable, in my opinion.
Sure, fashion played a role, but in this case the main driver was the need to support devices of different resolutions. Scalability implies vectors, which implies shapes, fills, and strokes rather than bitmap assets.
As a designer who made "skeuomorphic" interfaces before the shift, supporting even a couple of different device sizes with hundreds of different PNG slices had already gotten unsustainable by 2010, and moving to a vector-based workflow was a breath of fresh air.
The pendulum did swing a little too far: some of the early human interface guidelines were wary of the concept of lighting (gradients and shadows). But, realistically, that was unworkable, and those guidelines changed because nobody followed them.
"Flat design" as a moment was actually pretty short. Later iterations on the concepts explored during that moment, such as Material, were actually thoughtful and workable, in my opinion.
> early human interface guidelines were wary of the concept of lighting
Someone needs to go out and patent using multiple ambient light sensors to detect where light sources are relative to a screen, then shade skeuomorphic elements accordingly.
Someone needs to go out and patent using multiple ambient light sensors to detect where light sources are relative to a screen, then shade skeuomorphic elements accordingly.
I remember seeing that implemented somewhere, but I cant find it.
Maybe someone can help...
Maybe someone can help...
Some pre-7 versions of iOS would adjust the sheen on certain graphics (like one of the Settings icons, if memory serves) based on the gyroscope, so as you rotated the device the specular highlights would appear to move. Not exactly the same, but similar spirit.
From a CSS perspective, shadows, opacity, round borders, and other transformations are very expensive, so flat design is also a matter of resources constraint, they might look fluid, because with time the rendering backend got GPU speed ups, but they would still consume more power/ run a device hotter; this is probably less relevant on native guis..
The web already had solved that problem, even with bootstrap version 2. Surely apple provides primitives such as border-radius and gradients, which are enough to create an eye-catching button?
The level of skeuomorphic design never really hit the web the same as it was on iOS before version 7. Remember the pool table green felt and wood trim of Game Center? That sort of thing is probably extremely expensive to design and maintain for the wide range of screens offered by Apple products.
[deleted]
Anyone remember Kai's Power Tools?
Now that was an interesting UI.
https://www.mprove.de/script/99/kai/2Software.html?utm_sourc...
Now that was an interesting UI.
https://www.mprove.de/script/99/kai/2Software.html?utm_sourc...
Used to be all the rage in the late 90s / early aughts. I can remember many music players (or winamp skins) with that kind of UI texturing.
It was horrible.
It was horrible.
I was going to say Bryce 3D, but it hindsight, it wasn't that bad:
http://www.your3dsource.com/bryce-3d-screenshot.jpeg
http://www.your3dsource.com/bryce-3d-screenshot.jpeg
Does anyone know what happened to Kai Krause? Last I heard he was working on Something Interesting, and then silence.
He lives in Germany in the 1000 year old castle he bought in 1999 from the money he made from his ownership in the companies HSC, MetaTools and MetaCreations. The castle was not in the best state back then and was restored by Kai. Here is an aerial photo of the castle from 2009[1]. I lies on the Middle Rhine, a very beautiful area.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Burg_Rhe...
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Burg_Rhe...
Someone took the “10 European castles that cost less than San Francisco condominiums” article seriously. That’s awesome!
oh man, I didn't even know it was possible to just buy a castle. That's crazy cool
They can be bought and sold like any other realty. Some are owned by the state (esp. those used as public museums) and not up for sale, though.
They can be bought and sold but they come with a lot of obligations. Every modification has to be approved and the specifications are often very detailed. All in all I think a castle is a bit like a yacht - many people can afford one, not so many have the financial means to maintain one. Doesn't mean that owning and living in a castle isn't really cool, just that there is more to it than most people would expect.
They cost a lot of time and money to maintain, that's why you can buy a lot of them in Europe, in various state of damage.
I live on Long Island, NY. It's the home of the "Gold Coast."
In northern Nassau County, there's all these 100+-year-old mansions, on a gazillion acres.
Even though they are often owned by people that can afford the upkeep ("old money"), they tend to get sold or donated to the county or state.
There's a few great museums:
https://www.oldwestburygardens.org
https://plantingfields.org
https://nassaumuseum.org
and a few in Suffolk, as well:
https://bayardcuttingarboretum.com
https://www.vanderbiltmuseum.org
They are a pretty big pain to keep up. There's also a couple that have been abandoned, because the owners couldn't give them away.
In northern Nassau County, there's all these 100+-year-old mansions, on a gazillion acres.
Even though they are often owned by people that can afford the upkeep ("old money"), they tend to get sold or donated to the county or state.
There's a few great museums:
https://www.oldwestburygardens.org
https://plantingfields.org
https://nassaumuseum.org
and a few in Suffolk, as well:
https://bayardcuttingarboretum.com
https://www.vanderbiltmuseum.org
They are a pretty big pain to keep up. There's also a couple that have been abandoned, because the owners couldn't give them away.
They cost a lot of money to maintain and you cannot just let them decay because they come with an obligation that you maintain them. This means not only a vague general obligation but the monument authority will make specific specifications what has to be done and what can't be done. You'll have to get approval for every modification down to little details like the very specific type of window frame and such things. In some areas these obligations can also include that you open your premises for the general public once a year for the National Heritage Day.
He's still around. He did help design a pretty cool fractal explorer app for the iPad (I have it). http://sub.blue/frax
Wikipedia links to a blog (of sorts) of his:
http://kai.sub.blue
http://kai.sub.blue
That's...interesting.
Kai bought a castle in Germany that he intended to use as an incubator, called ByteBurg (burg being German for "castle"). I am not sure how successful it was, but ByteBurg II was cancelled. The latest news that I could find are from 2016 that claim that Kai would never sell the castle.
He had a blog that he did not update after a while. This blog's web address is now being used for some sort of penis enhancement service, which I find rather bizarre.
He had a blog that he did not update after a while. This blog's web address is now being used for some sort of penis enhancement service, which I find rather bizarre.
This is where Kai's website is now: http://kai.sub.blue/ (source: Wikipedia)
I remember it, and Xenofex and Eyecandy, but I'm not sure what they were actually useful for beyond gimmicky effects.
I used Eye Candy all the time (it was not a Kai Krause project). Back then, all the UI was skeuomorphic, and Eye Candy did a great job on that.
Apple: We now have an all new redesign for macOS 11...
Designers: Apple's done it again, Time to adopt neomorphism in our apps and the web, like we did with flat design and skeuomorphism.
Me: About this battery...[0]
[0] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/23/macos-big-sur-battery-h...
Designers: Apple's done it again, Time to adopt neomorphism in our apps and the web, like we did with flat design and skeuomorphism.
Me: About this battery...[0]
[0] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/23/macos-big-sur-battery-h...
The battery icon sucks, but you’re missing the forest for the trees.
Oh wow, that looks shockingly like the battery widget[plasmoid?] from KDE 4.0. Unfortunately I can't find a screenshot of it, but I recall it being huge, bright green, and very round. What the hell were they thinking?
They went too far on that one.
Do designers consider how expensive the gpu rendering is for skeumomorphism or neuromorphism?
Do designers consider how expensive the gpu rendering is for skeumomorphism or neuromorphism?
What? It is? Forgive my ignorance, but isn't it just bitmap rendering? E.g. rending a flat icon should take approx the same GPU toll as a skeumorphic icon
Flat design lets you make smaller 9 slices I guess. Smaller textures take up less ram but even that's a stretch.
I wasn't talking about icons alone in my second statement. :/
The design trend require soft shadows to be rendered on many elements in layers which I exaggeratedly pointed out. I apologise.
The design trend require soft shadows to be rendered on many elements in layers which I exaggeratedly pointed out. I apologise.
Shadows lead to overdraw I suppose, but I don't believe most UI frameworks draw front to back anyway. They end up accelerating it by making large, multi-element bitmaps of the final render. It ends up being a very small cost.
I think Apple went overboard with minimalism, flatness, and lack of texture. Walking some of that back is good. Recent Apple designs lack sufficient visual cues to differentiate functions. Some things ought to pop in some way to draw attention.
But "fun"? No thank you. All that cutesy crap they used to have was distracting. There was no consistency at all. Yellow lined paper as the notebook background? Winking emoji? UI elements that change size? A color palette chosen by a toddler on LSD? This new "fun" is an unwelcome reversion.
Apple finally dropped their misguided cuteness in hardware design and ditched all the rounded corners and pastel colors. Are they going to undo that too?
But "fun"? No thank you. All that cutesy crap they used to have was distracting. There was no consistency at all. Yellow lined paper as the notebook background? Winking emoji? UI elements that change size? A color palette chosen by a toddler on LSD? This new "fun" is an unwelcome reversion.
Apple finally dropped their misguided cuteness in hardware design and ditched all the rounded corners and pastel colors. Are they going to undo that too?
> I think Apple went overboard with minimalism, flatness, and lack of texture.
Never as much as Android in my opinion. Android went beyond flatness to complete abstractness, all in the name of "minimalism". The square/circle/triangle design decision was the most baffling example.
Never as much as Android in my opinion. Android went beyond flatness to complete abstractness, all in the name of "minimalism". The square/circle/triangle design decision was the most baffling example.
There's a difference between fun and kawaii.
You don't like kawaii. Fun is just that, it's fun. It doesn't make you say awww, but it does tug at the corner of your mouth. It makes you want to use what your using and do it again.
But it shouldn't come at the expense of experience or speed. Slow is rarely fun.
You don't like kawaii. Fun is just that, it's fun. It doesn't make you say awww, but it does tug at the corner of your mouth. It makes you want to use what your using and do it again.
But it shouldn't come at the expense of experience or speed. Slow is rarely fun.
> I think Apple went overboard with minimalism.
I’ll agree with you there. They went to every possible length to completely remove anything skeuomorphic, which made it much more difficult to determine the function of UI elements. There were very few relatable curs from the real world and everyday experience to help.
I believe that Google’s Material Design is the best at balancing “digital authenticity” with physical cues. And the chief insight is that lighting and surfaces are really important in everyday human experience for determining what things are and what they do. (And we determine what is a surface primarily based on lighting. It’s really all about lighting.) Material buttons, for example, look pressable, because they are raised, which you can infer based on the shadow they cast. But! They don’t look like a picture of a button from reality. That’s the difference. It’s not trying to perfectly emulate a button - it’s just trying to draw on subtle cues that humans use to identify buttons.
> But “fun”? No thank you.
That’s subjective. But in some cases I think you’re confusing fun with extreme skeuomorphism. The lined paper, for example, is so skeuomorphic, that it relies on making the entire application looking almost like a picture of a real pad of paper on your desk instead of using subtle cues to indicate the purpose of the application. The photorealistic objects in the new app icons, however, are not necessary for indicating the purpose of the app. They’re there because they’re rich, complex, and easy on the eyes - AKA “fun” - in the way that a painting is fun. You could easily draw stick figures to show what you mean, but a painting is rich with detail, color, and emotion. If you don’t want a sense of artistry in your desktop environment, you could use Linux with a lightweight desktop. Many of them are perfectly dry, sterile, and utilitarian. Most people, however, do have an aesthetic sense, and enjoy some kind of artistic touch. That’s why car sales are predominantly based on design aesthetic.
> Apple finally dropped their misguided cuteness in hardware design and ditched all the rounded corners and pastel colors. Are they going to undo that too?
I doubt it. There’s a difference between “fun” and “toyish” - what you call “cuteness.” I would argue that the physical aspects of Apple products are fun today without looking like toys. They used to look like toys. The bubbly appearance with pastel colors gave them a childish quality. New Apple hardware is a pleasure to behold, but not childish. I think that same intention is clear with the high-fidelity pen rendering in the new icon shown in the article. It’s not a crayon or a calligraphy pen. It looks like a Bauhaus design. It’s a utilitarian pen that an adult would use. It enriches and beautifies the icon without being toyish. The messages icon, on the other hand, was less expertly executed, I think. How do you add a sense of beauty and richness to a chat bubble? I would argue that you don’t. It’s too simple of a shape/object to try to do that with. It ends up looking like a balloon. They should rethink it. And the battery icon that everyone hates is obviously a mess. That needs to be rethought for sure.
Everyone is too concerned with the pendulum swing. When a pendulum swings, it never moves all the way back to its starting point. In this case, Apple started with full-on skeuomorphism and swung completely in the opposite direction - completely devoid of any kind of physicality to their design. And now the pendulum is swinging back, but will not go back to total skeuomorphism. What we’re seeing now is a refinement. A better balance between the two philosophies. An understanding that physical cues are helpful without needing to make the whole UI look photorealistic. And and acknowledgment that playing with light and photorealism with restraint can be pleasing.
I like this direction, even if there are a handful of missteps.
I’ll agree with you there. They went to every possible length to completely remove anything skeuomorphic, which made it much more difficult to determine the function of UI elements. There were very few relatable curs from the real world and everyday experience to help.
I believe that Google’s Material Design is the best at balancing “digital authenticity” with physical cues. And the chief insight is that lighting and surfaces are really important in everyday human experience for determining what things are and what they do. (And we determine what is a surface primarily based on lighting. It’s really all about lighting.) Material buttons, for example, look pressable, because they are raised, which you can infer based on the shadow they cast. But! They don’t look like a picture of a button from reality. That’s the difference. It’s not trying to perfectly emulate a button - it’s just trying to draw on subtle cues that humans use to identify buttons.
> But “fun”? No thank you.
That’s subjective. But in some cases I think you’re confusing fun with extreme skeuomorphism. The lined paper, for example, is so skeuomorphic, that it relies on making the entire application looking almost like a picture of a real pad of paper on your desk instead of using subtle cues to indicate the purpose of the application. The photorealistic objects in the new app icons, however, are not necessary for indicating the purpose of the app. They’re there because they’re rich, complex, and easy on the eyes - AKA “fun” - in the way that a painting is fun. You could easily draw stick figures to show what you mean, but a painting is rich with detail, color, and emotion. If you don’t want a sense of artistry in your desktop environment, you could use Linux with a lightweight desktop. Many of them are perfectly dry, sterile, and utilitarian. Most people, however, do have an aesthetic sense, and enjoy some kind of artistic touch. That’s why car sales are predominantly based on design aesthetic.
> Apple finally dropped their misguided cuteness in hardware design and ditched all the rounded corners and pastel colors. Are they going to undo that too?
I doubt it. There’s a difference between “fun” and “toyish” - what you call “cuteness.” I would argue that the physical aspects of Apple products are fun today without looking like toys. They used to look like toys. The bubbly appearance with pastel colors gave them a childish quality. New Apple hardware is a pleasure to behold, but not childish. I think that same intention is clear with the high-fidelity pen rendering in the new icon shown in the article. It’s not a crayon or a calligraphy pen. It looks like a Bauhaus design. It’s a utilitarian pen that an adult would use. It enriches and beautifies the icon without being toyish. The messages icon, on the other hand, was less expertly executed, I think. How do you add a sense of beauty and richness to a chat bubble? I would argue that you don’t. It’s too simple of a shape/object to try to do that with. It ends up looking like a balloon. They should rethink it. And the battery icon that everyone hates is obviously a mess. That needs to be rethought for sure.
Everyone is too concerned with the pendulum swing. When a pendulum swings, it never moves all the way back to its starting point. In this case, Apple started with full-on skeuomorphism and swung completely in the opposite direction - completely devoid of any kind of physicality to their design. And now the pendulum is swinging back, but will not go back to total skeuomorphism. What we’re seeing now is a refinement. A better balance between the two philosophies. An understanding that physical cues are helpful without needing to make the whole UI look photorealistic. And and acknowledgment that playing with light and photorealism with restraint can be pleasing.
I like this direction, even if there are a handful of missteps.
Of course this author's happy--they're a designer. Meanwhile, everyone else has to absorb the burden of the "pendulum" ceaselessly swinging, retraining their brains yet again to absorb new visual memories and habits.
There seems to be no such concept as "good enough."
There seems to be no such concept as "good enough."
Programming is currently hating on OOP, in love with strong typing, and somewhere on the way from loving microservices to disowning ever to have spoken in their favor. Ten years ago, it was the opposite.
So this particular quirk of thinking in groups doesn't seem to be confined to the design domain. Nor do "swings of pendulum" preclude the pendulum also having some forward momentum in sum.
Think of it as a skier's waving, or a sailboat crossing against the wind, and the sideways motions is actually required for any forward motion to happen.
So this particular quirk of thinking in groups doesn't seem to be confined to the design domain. Nor do "swings of pendulum" preclude the pendulum also having some forward momentum in sum.
Think of it as a skier's waving, or a sailboat crossing against the wind, and the sideways motions is actually required for any forward motion to happen.
I totally agree. I call it "throw the baby out with the bathwater" syndrome. Usually some technology has a particular problem, probably not huge, but as that technology becomes dominant, its warts start to grate on more people.
So someone comes up with a new technology and says "Look! It fixes all the problems of Technology A!" And people who are new enough to the field who pretty much only have experience with Technology A think it's great, because this new thing fixes A's problems.
Meanwhile, though, Technology B has its own host of problems, and oftentimes those kinds of problems are the ones Technology A was originally created to fix! And so the pendulum swings until you get enough years behind you on Technology B where it's problems become apparent enough, so someone comes up with Technology C, which is basically Technology A with more modern trappings.
Whenever you make a technology switch, be very cognizant about what you're losing as well as what you're gaining.
So someone comes up with a new technology and says "Look! It fixes all the problems of Technology A!" And people who are new enough to the field who pretty much only have experience with Technology A think it's great, because this new thing fixes A's problems.
Meanwhile, though, Technology B has its own host of problems, and oftentimes those kinds of problems are the ones Technology A was originally created to fix! And so the pendulum swings until you get enough years behind you on Technology B where it's problems become apparent enough, so someone comes up with Technology C, which is basically Technology A with more modern trappings.
Whenever you make a technology switch, be very cognizant about what you're losing as well as what you're gaining.
What you're describing is known as the hype cycle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle
Some of the things you mentioned are pure aesthetics - and they change with time - forward and backward. Some others change with the advent of tools and other developments. Micro services are hard to do right and they have been hard. But people rushed into it. With better tools in the future that might change.
Same with beginner/new projects embracing dynamic programming. It’s perfect for a new code add. It bites only later; when the enthusiasm has died off and you got to keep the codebase and tests up to date and things start slipping here and there.
Go is a darling now because it’s constraining. It skipped passed the last three decades of advancement in languages like they never happened. And then as it becomes way more popular people will ask for the same set of features that other languages have had forever.
Same with beginner/new projects embracing dynamic programming. It’s perfect for a new code add. It bites only later; when the enthusiasm has died off and you got to keep the codebase and tests up to date and things start slipping here and there.
Go is a darling now because it’s constraining. It skipped passed the last three decades of advancement in languages like they never happened. And then as it becomes way more popular people will ask for the same set of features that other languages have had forever.
[deleted]
Yes. This.
Things change. Deal with it.
And yet, things don’t have to change at an indigestible rate. Windows, for example, is changing so fast lately, that directions for use change on a semi-annual basis, and self-consistency is almost entirely gone. They never release a finished product, and It creates highly unnecessary cognitive burden.
Things change. Deal with it.
And yet, things don’t have to change at an indigestible rate. Windows, for example, is changing so fast lately, that directions for use change on a semi-annual basis, and self-consistency is almost entirely gone. They never release a finished product, and It creates highly unnecessary cognitive burden.
The people making these decisions think customers respond better if the UI gets a "visual refresh" from time to time, and they're probably right.
It's human nature to judge by superficial attributes. If you have a perfectly good UI but it never changes, it gives people the feeling that your software is stagnant and out of date.
It's inconvenient for the user, but it catches the user's attention and makes them think about the software. Essentially it boosts brand awareness. It's the same reason that they change the design on a box of granola bars and write "new look, same great taste!" on it.
It also costs engineering / designer labor. And there's a danger of replacing the old design with a newer one that doesn't work as well. The people making these decisions probably know that but think it's worth the cost anyway.
It's human nature to judge by superficial attributes. If you have a perfectly good UI but it never changes, it gives people the feeling that your software is stagnant and out of date.
It's inconvenient for the user, but it catches the user's attention and makes them think about the software. Essentially it boosts brand awareness. It's the same reason that they change the design on a box of granola bars and write "new look, same great taste!" on it.
It also costs engineering / designer labor. And there's a danger of replacing the old design with a newer one that doesn't work as well. The people making these decisions probably know that but think it's worth the cost anyway.
Design is not an optimization procedure like chip design. It's dominated by trends, like fashion. There is a small subset of people who care about optimal design, which measures things like perceptual reaction time etc. That's the military
> There seems to be no such concept as "good enough."
For a moment in time, "good enough" exists. But in a dynamic world we should probably accept that "good enough" is ephemeral.
For a moment in time, "good enough" exists. But in a dynamic world we should probably accept that "good enough" is ephemeral.
I'm a designer, and this may be a cynical take on this but all I see is Apple shifting to skeumorphic design just so that they can go back to flat in 5-10 years and go "Look at how timeless our previous designs were!"
It doesn’t seem that outrageous. Clothing fashion changes, and while there is some tongue in cheek complaining about it, I think our brains are quite okay “retraining.” Same with musical trends changing. Surely we don’t just say “that’s great for working musicians, but it sucks for everyone else who has to get accustomed to new music.”
I'm a user and I'm also happy. :)
Change is fun.
Being stuck with the same aesthetics for much longer than 5 years sounds like a special circle of Hell.
Change is fun.
Being stuck with the same aesthetics for much longer than 5 years sounds like a special circle of Hell.
> There seems to be no such concept as "good enough."
I don’t think that concept has had any meaning since the Industrial Revolution. Capitalism is built upon the belief that nothing is ever good enough.
You will never see “good enough” in consumer goods in a capitalistic society.
I don’t think that concept has had any meaning since the Industrial Revolution. Capitalism is built upon the belief that nothing is ever good enough.
You will never see “good enough” in consumer goods in a capitalistic society.
Keeps them in a job i guess
The problem with the shift to flat design wasn't that it stopped being "fun", the problem was that there was a whole bunch of things being communicated to users by the previous, non-flat designs that got lost in the transition, and that flat design doesn't have a good alternative for:
- Not using shadows and lines to separate panels, and using solid color blocking or whitespace instead is much more confining, design-wise, and greatly limits possible information density. Sure, all that whitespace looks great in presentations, but it's like the difference between a designer kitchen from a magazine and a place where I can actually cook.
- Panels that are raised up or recessed using shading provide an obvious hierarchy, giving users valuable cues as to the relation of the elements. With shading and depth, it's obvious that items in this toolbar affect the items in this panel below it, one is subservient to the other. With color blocking, it's all just rectangles next to each other.
- Buttons that are slightly raised up have an affordance for clicking, and there's no way in hell you can confuse them for a label - it's much easier to overlook that 'the label with blue text' is actually a button, while the label with black text is just a label.
- Ostensibly, a flat design contains fewer distractions. But ironically, in reality, a human brain may have a much harder time understanding an interface when everything is flat and looks alike, than when elements have depth and distinctness to them. More information communicated does not always translate into more cognitive load in processing it - often the opposite is true.
Sure, I understand the urge to rebel against skeomorphism (that faux-leather in the iOS Find my Friends app was an abomination) but they threw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm glad to see a lot of these changes being slowly walked back with successive versions of iOS - in the linked article the comparison between the "tabs" (segmented control) in iOS 12 and 13 really showcases how a shaded design can look both less distracting and convey more information than a dogmatically flat design.
- Not using shadows and lines to separate panels, and using solid color blocking or whitespace instead is much more confining, design-wise, and greatly limits possible information density. Sure, all that whitespace looks great in presentations, but it's like the difference between a designer kitchen from a magazine and a place where I can actually cook.
- Panels that are raised up or recessed using shading provide an obvious hierarchy, giving users valuable cues as to the relation of the elements. With shading and depth, it's obvious that items in this toolbar affect the items in this panel below it, one is subservient to the other. With color blocking, it's all just rectangles next to each other.
- Buttons that are slightly raised up have an affordance for clicking, and there's no way in hell you can confuse them for a label - it's much easier to overlook that 'the label with blue text' is actually a button, while the label with black text is just a label.
- Ostensibly, a flat design contains fewer distractions. But ironically, in reality, a human brain may have a much harder time understanding an interface when everything is flat and looks alike, than when elements have depth and distinctness to them. More information communicated does not always translate into more cognitive load in processing it - often the opposite is true.
Sure, I understand the urge to rebel against skeomorphism (that faux-leather in the iOS Find my Friends app was an abomination) but they threw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm glad to see a lot of these changes being slowly walked back with successive versions of iOS - in the linked article the comparison between the "tabs" (segmented control) in iOS 12 and 13 really showcases how a shaded design can look both less distracting and convey more information than a dogmatically flat design.
"Pendulum swings" are going to shake off everyone else at different rates and we're going to be stuck with an eclectic mix of designs. This already plagues Windows (Ribbon, legacy settings) and Android (square, squircle, circle, triangle icons).
I don't think people are able to distinguish between what's new and old anymore. Aesthetics will finally be free from corporate trend setting and maybe we'll feel comfortable doing our own thing.
I don't think people are able to distinguish between what's new and old anymore. Aesthetics will finally be free from corporate trend setting and maybe we'll feel comfortable doing our own thing.
The difference though is that on Windows you have to specifically choose visual styles to some degree.
On Apple systems, as long as you’re using the native frameworks, the framework itself handles a lot more of the visual update.
Both methods have their pros and cons, but you’re less likely to see an aesthetic divergence on iOS/macOS
On Apple systems, as long as you’re using the native frameworks, the framework itself handles a lot more of the visual update.
Both methods have their pros and cons, but you’re less likely to see an aesthetic divergence on iOS/macOS
The pendulum swings are not the problem. They have been around forever. The problem, on Windows at least, is that they no longer take the time to finish their work, they don’t give developers standard frameworks to gracefully upgrade automatically to new schemes, and they change their minds so often with little warning to developers that devs don’t have time or patience to keep up.
The difference with Apple is that they finish their work, and the pace of change is much slower.
The difference with Apple is that they finish their work, and the pace of change is much slower.
you forgot teardrop on android, which i use coz it's so hilariously bad but someone wanted it in so it got in.
aka google PM syndrome
aka google PM syndrome
I don't want visual design to be fun. I want it to be clean and consistent. I would gladly take something in 16 color EGA with Comic Sans as its main font if it would just stick to a rigid and clear design language.
I don't think if buttons are flat or lickable or shiny or bezeled or oozing pus-filled nodules. As long as every button has the same styling as every other button and nothing that isn't clickable has that styling? I'm happy.
Pick something and stick to it.
And people who want "fun" designs can go work on their blog.
I don't think if buttons are flat or lickable or shiny or bezeled or oozing pus-filled nodules. As long as every button has the same styling as every other button and nothing that isn't clickable has that styling? I'm happy.
Pick something and stick to it.
And people who want "fun" designs can go work on their blog.
In case HN is bringing it down (as it seems to be the case now): https://web.archive.org/web/20200705130437/https://applypixe...
What's weird is that it fails at SSL protocol negotiation; Chrome says it can't agree on a SSL version or cipher.
This is weird because the cert is issued by CloudFlare, who probably shouldn't fail TLS negotiation just because the backend is unresponsive. Very strange.
This is weird because the cert is issued by CloudFlare, who probably shouldn't fail TLS negotiation just because the backend is unresponsive. Very strange.
On Firefox, I get SEC_ERROR_OCSP_UNAUTHORIZED_REQUEST, so there may be a problem with CloudFlare's OCSP server (?!?). But this is because I manually set security.ocsp.require = true in about:config. When I reset that to false, the page opens fine.
Thank god the designs are being reconsidered from cheap flat looks but they now kind of look like toys with rounded corners for everything and are all square instead of having their own sizes.
I'd still take iOS 6 design any day for iOS.
Snow Leopard and iOS6 were their OS' peak.
I'd still take iOS 6 design any day for iOS.
Snow Leopard and iOS6 were their OS' peak.
> Thank god the designs are being reconsidered from cheap flat looks but they now kind of look like toys with rounded corners for everything and are all square instead of having their own sizes.
All that hype around "flat" was just that, hype. Design needs texture and depth, these are just core concepts of design. Doing away with texture or depth because somebody in the silicon valley decided it was outdated means that all these designers that jumped into the "flat bandwagon" didn't even understand what their job was about: not following trends but ACTUALLY designing for a public.
All that hype around "flat" was just that, hype. Design needs texture and depth, these are just core concepts of design. Doing away with texture or depth because somebody in the silicon valley decided it was outdated means that all these designers that jumped into the "flat bandwagon" didn't even understand what their job was about: not following trends but ACTUALLY designing for a public.
I agree with you on macOS but I also like the current design. It's not that big of a departure and it looks modern without sacrificing anything. Can't say the same about Big Sur though...
I used to feel the same about iOS but if you search screenshots of it now at least to me it really didn't stand the test of time.
I used to feel the same about iOS but if you search screenshots of it now at least to me it really didn't stand the test of time.
Finally Apple has come to its senses! This flatness was like the touchbar.
People forget but the reason this minimalist design travesty happened was political: Steve Jobs was no longer around, he had fired Scott Forstall because of the bungled Maps fiasco, and he promoted Jony Ive, the hardware minimalist who wanted to Bauhaus all the things.
This is what I wrote in 2016, if Steve Jobs still ran Apple: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=234
Look, we may not need skeumorphism, but we need shadows. We need to know what is part of the chrome interface and what’s part of the documents. When I was a kid I joined the Apple Human Interface developers usenet group (anyone remember those?) They used to be religiously against hidden modes (interface modes which could not be discovered and navigated to by straightforward visual inspection). Apple computers used to be easy to use for precisely guidelines like these, which they proudly published. Heck, they even proudly touted the small size of their phones for ease of access, which I agreed with:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0gtsjfy7E
They became hypocrites and trend-followers when they abandoned all these things. Microsoft started the flat trend (and Woz praised them for it). Android phones became “phablets” (which Steve Jobs derided). Apple became a follower and didn’t even bother remembering what they claimed was the best way, just a year earlier.
But then again, of course, Apple always did this even under Steve - claiming RISC processors were far better and next year claiming Intel was better after they switched. Claiming they invented the Omnibox in Safari years after Chrome did.
But at least I am happy to see some of Apple’s original DNA coming back.
People forget but the reason this minimalist design travesty happened was political: Steve Jobs was no longer around, he had fired Scott Forstall because of the bungled Maps fiasco, and he promoted Jony Ive, the hardware minimalist who wanted to Bauhaus all the things.
This is what I wrote in 2016, if Steve Jobs still ran Apple: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=234
Look, we may not need skeumorphism, but we need shadows. We need to know what is part of the chrome interface and what’s part of the documents. When I was a kid I joined the Apple Human Interface developers usenet group (anyone remember those?) They used to be religiously against hidden modes (interface modes which could not be discovered and navigated to by straightforward visual inspection). Apple computers used to be easy to use for precisely guidelines like these, which they proudly published. Heck, they even proudly touted the small size of their phones for ease of access, which I agreed with:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0gtsjfy7E
They became hypocrites and trend-followers when they abandoned all these things. Microsoft started the flat trend (and Woz praised them for it). Android phones became “phablets” (which Steve Jobs derided). Apple became a follower and didn’t even bother remembering what they claimed was the best way, just a year earlier.
But then again, of course, Apple always did this even under Steve - claiming RISC processors were far better and next year claiming Intel was better after they switched. Claiming they invented the Omnibox in Safari years after Chrome did.
But at least I am happy to see some of Apple’s original DNA coming back.
> This is what I wrote in 2016, if Steve Jobs still ran Apple: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=234
You may want to install a spam filter on that comment section, or just disable it.
You may want to install a spam filter on that comment section, or just disable it.
Sometimes you don't need to overthink it - design changes are required every few years to make a product look fresh and new. Not because previous design was worse, or not usable, or new is better, or boring etc.
This kind of design ban lift is very welcome, as it brings a freshness to things again (speaking as an user specifically), but I sincerely hope this doesn't become a short-time cycle thing with Apple dictating the new UI motif of the next 5 years only to change it back and then back again and back. My memory of the change from skeuomorphism to a more flat colorful design is that it was rather abrupt across UIs everywhere in the industry, not to say a bit "traumatic" to some people probably.
well it didn't shift coz of apple alone, they're just the largest visible adopters.
as someone said in this thread, skeumorphism started looking really strange and is tough to do on high rez screens and varying form factor screens
I feel like I'm one of the few people who still likes flat designs. I hope it doesn't swing all the way back to full skeumorphism. YouTube looks way better than it did five years ago. What I do miss is efficient use of space. HackerNews still has a great design, it's really efficient with space. Old school iOS used space efficiently too, because it had to. It only had a 3.5" screen to work with. I miss that.
What I miss since iOS 7 is buttons that look like buttons. BUTTONS THAT LOOK LIKE BUTTONS. Is that too much to ask!?! Why are we stuck with sometimes plain blue text, especially when the use of that blue in UI "elements" isn't even consistent with regards to function or behaviour.
As a user, I like where flat design has taken us, generally. But I absolutely agree with you: the loss of “functionality hinting” (I’m sure there’s an actual term for this, but I don’t know what it is) is pretty bad. You can stumble around a design that isn’t in your language, if the cues are strong enough. But all-text directions throw that right out.
> “functionality hinting” (I’m sure there’s an actual term for this, but I don’t know what it is)
“Affordance” is the term you’re looking for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance#As_perceived_action...
“Affordance” is the term you’re looking for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance#As_perceived_action...
It seems the term is in fact "signifiers". From your link:
> Affordances determine what actions are possible. Signifiers communicate where the action should take place. We need both.
> Affordances determine what actions are possible. Signifiers communicate where the action should take place. We need both.
This is too much like 1950s auto design. Tailfins for your phone!
In 1955, the auto industry caught up with the pent-up demand from WWII. Suddenly, making cars wasn't enough. Now they had to convince people to replace their old car even though it still ran. That's when auto styling became exuberant. All the automakers had tailfins. Big tailfins.
Peak tailfin was reached in the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado. Tailfins then shrank, until by 1965, they were completely gone.
Tailfins are what you do when you have no clue how to improve the product. By 1955, car engines had enough power, automatic transmissions and power brakes worked, suspensions were smooth, and air conditioning was available. Getting from point A to point B comfortably was pretty much solved. Solutions to the hard problems in fuel economy, safety, reliability, and handling were not yet available for production cars. So chrome and tailfins dominated.
In 1955, the auto industry caught up with the pent-up demand from WWII. Suddenly, making cars wasn't enough. Now they had to convince people to replace their old car even though it still ran. That's when auto styling became exuberant. All the automakers had tailfins. Big tailfins.
Peak tailfin was reached in the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado. Tailfins then shrank, until by 1965, they were completely gone.
Tailfins are what you do when you have no clue how to improve the product. By 1955, car engines had enough power, automatic transmissions and power brakes worked, suspensions were smooth, and air conditioning was available. Getting from point A to point B comfortably was pretty much solved. Solutions to the hard problems in fuel economy, safety, reliability, and handling were not yet available for production cars. So chrome and tailfins dominated.
There's a lot of middle ground between excessively flat and excessively skeuomorphic. I don't want cartoon pictures and faux-wood textures on everything. I just want things to look clickable..
Material design almost gets it right. A bit more visual distinction between interactable and non-interactable elements and I'd be happy.
Material design almost gets it right. A bit more visual distinction between interactable and non-interactable elements and I'd be happy.
I like discoverability and generally appreciate Apple's unified visual design for macOS 11 and iOS 14.
However, I will miss the distinct outline shapes and silhouettes which have made macOS icons easy to distinguish from each other since the original Mac (really earlier than that, going back to the Lisa and Xerox Alto.) Now everything's going to be an iPhone home-screen RoundRect.
Consider these distinctive silhouettes of Super Smash Bros. fighters: https://www.sporcle.com/games/skuban/super-smash-bros-charac...
Or the silhouettes from Apple's iconic iPod ads: https://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/ipod-silhouettes-2000-2...
However, I will miss the distinct outline shapes and silhouettes which have made macOS icons easy to distinguish from each other since the original Mac (really earlier than that, going back to the Lisa and Xerox Alto.) Now everything's going to be an iPhone home-screen RoundRect.
Consider these distinctive silhouettes of Super Smash Bros. fighters: https://www.sporcle.com/games/skuban/super-smash-bros-charac...
Or the silhouettes from Apple's iconic iPod ads: https://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/ipod-silhouettes-2000-2...
What if we could give complete control of visuals to user?
I use kde nowadays and the amount of customization is awesome.
I am using chrome OS theme with tela icon pack and a cool ass animated mouse pack. And its frankly awesome.
I feel like Apple is stagnating.
I use kde nowadays and the amount of customization is awesome.
I am using chrome OS theme with tela icon pack and a cool ass animated mouse pack. And its frankly awesome.
I feel like Apple is stagnating.
I kinda like the ability to customize the Linux desktop. But in practice, I always end up with some major problems and many edge cases where my choices just don't work.
A recent example was some web view showing a change log that respected the font color settings but not the background, resulting in white-on-white text with my dark UI.
I'm probably far more willing to spend time on such issues. But I never got to a place where I felt I was "done". In that sense, Linux only demonstrates the difficulty of UI choices, and how it may not be possible to leave it to users. Hell, it's not even possible, apparently, to leave to application developers, judging by the state of the non-customized Linux desktop. Design may be a creative endeavour that requires a competent dictator, and cannot be done in the bazaar-model of OSS.
(That, of course, is on top of the rather large number of flaws of any given Linux UI. Seriously: after reading much praise and endless criticism of MacOS here on HN, I gave (K)Ubuntu another shot. And the only possible conclusion is that Apple and Linux are measured on widely different scales.)
A recent example was some web view showing a change log that respected the font color settings but not the background, resulting in white-on-white text with my dark UI.
I'm probably far more willing to spend time on such issues. But I never got to a place where I felt I was "done". In that sense, Linux only demonstrates the difficulty of UI choices, and how it may not be possible to leave it to users. Hell, it's not even possible, apparently, to leave to application developers, judging by the state of the non-customized Linux desktop. Design may be a creative endeavour that requires a competent dictator, and cannot be done in the bazaar-model of OSS.
(That, of course, is on top of the rather large number of flaws of any given Linux UI. Seriously: after reading much praise and endless criticism of MacOS here on HN, I gave (K)Ubuntu another shot. And the only possible conclusion is that Apple and Linux are measured on widely different scales.)
> And the only possible conclusion is that Apple and Linux are measured on widely different scales.)
+1
They are simply designed for different end users - and that is fine. I used macOS for ~5 years before getting fed up with the limited window management - but I understand why it is that way - most people don't care. So people who do, can just use KDE et al, peace.
+1
They are simply designed for different end users - and that is fine. I used macOS for ~5 years before getting fed up with the limited window management - but I understand why it is that way - most people don't care. So people who do, can just use KDE et al, peace.
Then it will not macOS/iOS as we love it.
The main reason I love iOS and macOS is the consistency in the interface because majority of apps follows the same HIG provided by Apple.
Windows is a mess between various interfaces from various eras of Windows and I dislike it. I don't want to figure things out, the app should just work consistently for me. Even today, various distros are struggling to make sure various GTK/QT/etc apps are themed the same way when you change their theme settings (they're getting better with client side decorations).
I used to play with themes and hacks on Windows, I almost always go back to default because in the long run, it just got boring after a few months and it was annoying. I want consistency and stability more than customization. Even on Pop!_OS I use on my Thinkpad; I've tried various themes and WDM, I just gave up and left it at default, it's fine. The only tweak I need is font scaling to make HiDPI work better.
The main reason I love iOS and macOS is the consistency in the interface because majority of apps follows the same HIG provided by Apple.
Windows is a mess between various interfaces from various eras of Windows and I dislike it. I don't want to figure things out, the app should just work consistently for me. Even today, various distros are struggling to make sure various GTK/QT/etc apps are themed the same way when you change their theme settings (they're getting better with client side decorations).
I used to play with themes and hacks on Windows, I almost always go back to default because in the long run, it just got boring after a few months and it was annoying. I want consistency and stability more than customization. Even on Pop!_OS I use on my Thinkpad; I've tried various themes and WDM, I just gave up and left it at default, it's fine. The only tweak I need is font scaling to make HiDPI work better.
> What if we could give complete control of visuals to user?
This would be a terrible idea.
People complain (in the comments on this very page) that Apple’s professional designers do a terrible job. You think my uncle is going to do better?
This would be a terrible idea.
People complain (in the comments on this very page) that Apple’s professional designers do a terrible job. You think my uncle is going to do better?
> You think my uncle is going to do better?
Yes he will, because he has to only care about what he needs, and he is the best judge of that.
Yes he will, because he has to only care about what he needs, and he is the best judge of that.
>he is the best judge of that.
The jaded old fart SW dev in me tells you:
No, he most certainly isn't.
The jaded old fart SW dev in me tells you:
No, he most certainly isn't.
Why do you suppose he is the best judge of that? Surely that’s not the case for other professions that offer products or services, like medicine, airplane piloting, etc.
Again, please do not compare oranges and apples. This is not about the uncle in question creating a professional product for others, it is about him arranging UI elements in the way he deems fit. A better (although still imperfect) comparison is you cooking your own lunch.
Why not Apple itself give a few options from minimalist to textured?
Sure as hell Apple will not allow too much customization, but they could do the designs themselves and give users a bit more choice.
Sure as hell Apple will not allow too much customization, but they could do the designs themselves and give users a bit more choice.
Apple does allow you to chose between dark and light mode, as well as accent- and highlight colours.
Beyond that, you quickly get to a point where whole layouts would have to change. Doing so, across three to five platforms, would be a major undertaking for Apple itself. And app developers would never be able to consistently support multiple design paradigms, leading to a fractured experience.
Beyond that, you quickly get to a point where whole layouts would have to change. Doing so, across three to five platforms, would be a major undertaking for Apple itself. And app developers would never be able to consistently support multiple design paradigms, leading to a fractured experience.
I wonder if Apple will ever let people install app icon libraries to change the appearance of default apps. That would be fun (at least I remember having fun as a kid doing that on Windows 95).
Remember that app in the 1990s that allowed heavy-duty customization of the OS? Was it called Kaleidoscope? Can't remember.
I know that it could do things like apply a "steampunk" theme, where all the scrollbars turned into brass poles, with green leather handles for the thumb button.
Some of the themes were vomit-inducing (most of them, actually), but it did have a couple of great ones.
I know that it could do things like apply a "steampunk" theme, where all the scrollbars turned into brass poles, with green leather handles for the thumb button.
Some of the themes were vomit-inducing (most of them, actually), but it did have a couple of great ones.
Kaleidoscope https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/kaleidoscope
Yup. That's it.
AFAIK (haven't kicked the wheels on macOS 11 beta yet) you can still manually change all the default icons? I do anyway, I always hated Apple's new ones and found a perfect set I liked instead. All default system icons are still just icns bundles at
/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources
Not sure if it's possible for default apps (I don't have a Mac right now), but can't you just open a Get Item dialog, drag & drop an alternative icon onto the icon displayed in the dialog to replace it? (& click the icon, press delete to restore)
Yay for some depth to design. Nay for the overuse of drop shadows (especially on Messages icon).
here's a very interesting take here - about art deco being the design for the next few years https://vanschneider.com/art-deco-will-be-the-visual-languag...
However, I also believe that the Bauhaus way of using flat designs with interesting shapes and motion will be an interesting path forward
However, I also believe that the Bauhaus way of using flat designs with interesting shapes and motion will be an interesting path forward
Whatever you think of Art Deco - and personally I loathe it, but that's incidental - IMO it would be a tragic failure of imagination to try to reincarnate a design style that's already a century old.
Likewise for Bauhaus design - also a century old.
There are hints of a new generative aesthetic - busy in an unhierarchical repeated-elements kind of way, with organic influences - but that's better suited to architecture and sculpture than commercial design.
There probably won't be a completely original design language until AR/VR become ubiquitous - which will take a while.
Likewise for Bauhaus design - also a century old.
There are hints of a new generative aesthetic - busy in an unhierarchical repeated-elements kind of way, with organic influences - but that's better suited to architecture and sculpture than commercial design.
There probably won't be a completely original design language until AR/VR become ubiquitous - which will take a while.
In a lot of ways, material design is Bauhaus.
I don't have any experience in art history or design, but judging by the photos in your article, you seem to be conjecturing that in 5-10 years, everything is going to look like a Wes Anderson film. :)
Nielsen Norman Group have been criticising flat design for a long time.
One of the major criticisms is that over time they cause even experienced users to become hesitant and uncertain.[1]
That right there should have been enough to squash flat design.
[1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-design-long-exposure/
One of the major criticisms is that over time they cause even experienced users to become hesitant and uncertain.[1]
That right there should have been enough to squash flat design.
[1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-design-long-exposure/
The post, describing the new iOS 14/macOS icons:
>Some of them depict physical objects in a style that can only really be called skeuomorphic
No, this style cannot really be called skeuomorphic. You cannot have "skeuomorphic" icons. Neither etymologically or semantically.
Skeuomorphic etymological comes from Greek for "appliance like".
And semantically it's about GUIs (key distinction: GUIs, not icons or images) emulating real world objects.
A movie player interface that looks like a real-world DVD player is a skeuomorphic UI.
A movie player icon that looks like a TV set, or a Dick Utility icon with a hard drive and a pair stethoscope are not "skeuomorphic".
They are merely life-like depictions.
Same way, if an icon for my "Horse" app (say, a note taking app) is a realistically rendered horse, that's not "skeuomorphism". That's just an icon with a plain old "realism" painting/rendering of a horse.
>Some of them depict physical objects in a style that can only really be called skeuomorphic
No, this style cannot really be called skeuomorphic. You cannot have "skeuomorphic" icons. Neither etymologically or semantically.
Skeuomorphic etymological comes from Greek for "appliance like".
And semantically it's about GUIs (key distinction: GUIs, not icons or images) emulating real world objects.
A movie player interface that looks like a real-world DVD player is a skeuomorphic UI.
A movie player icon that looks like a TV set, or a Dick Utility icon with a hard drive and a pair stethoscope are not "skeuomorphic".
They are merely life-like depictions.
Same way, if an icon for my "Horse" app (say, a note taking app) is a realistically rendered horse, that's not "skeuomorphism". That's just an icon with a plain old "realism" painting/rendering of a horse.
As with all visual systems, too much minimalism and too much noise spoil the experience.
Ultimately, the context matters a lot. Not to mention the app, target users, complexity of the app, and what not.
But I really hated those flat, borderless 'buttons' in earlier iOS versions.
That's just stupid design. It's minimal for sure, but functionally.
Ultimately, the context matters a lot. Not to mention the app, target users, complexity of the app, and what not.
But I really hated those flat, borderless 'buttons' in earlier iOS versions.
That's just stupid design. It's minimal for sure, but functionally.
"Pendulum swings" , "Changes". Are these really the right word to use?
Apple has always had some from of Skeuomorphic in their design since its early days. It was what Steve wanted it to be. Apple felt that flatness were wrong right after iOS 7 was released. An every year since then they have been "walking back" those "changes".
Everything Ive changed all reverted back to Steve Jobs' era. Scott Forstall wouldn't have left. Their Head of UI wouldn't have left. Apple Store changed in design and layout, ( You could argued whether those are from Angela or Jony ) some of them are reverted back. Apple's Keyboard to literally no key travel, reverted back to 1mm but still very shallow to the old 1.5mm. A large part of Apple has spend a half a decade fixing their wrong directional changes.
I really miss Steve Jobs.
Apple has always had some from of Skeuomorphic in their design since its early days. It was what Steve wanted it to be. Apple felt that flatness were wrong right after iOS 7 was released. An every year since then they have been "walking back" those "changes".
Everything Ive changed all reverted back to Steve Jobs' era. Scott Forstall wouldn't have left. Their Head of UI wouldn't have left. Apple Store changed in design and layout, ( You could argued whether those are from Angela or Jony ) some of them are reverted back. Apple's Keyboard to literally no key travel, reverted back to 1mm but still very shallow to the old 1.5mm. A large part of Apple has spend a half a decade fixing their wrong directional changes.
I really miss Steve Jobs.
What do you mean about the key travel on the keyboard? I’m not familiar with the term in this context.
The depth of Key press. The previous keys on Macbook are 1.5mm in depth, the distance it travel every time you press it, with roughly 60g of force. This has been sort of the golden standard in keyboard on Notebook ( and in many cases Desktop ) for more than a decade. Apple reduce that to 0.7mm in their infamous butterfly keyboard in the name of thinner devices. For some that might have been fine or even preferable. For many its typing experience is much worst.
Due to its reliability problems ( which may not have anything to do with the lower key depth ) Apple walked back on the design and uses a 1 mm Key travel "Magic Keyboard". And from my experience it is pretty much the same as the old Butterfly keyboard in terms of Typing experience.
Due to its reliability problems ( which may not have anything to do with the lower key depth ) Apple walked back on the design and uses a 1 mm Key travel "Magic Keyboard". And from my experience it is pretty much the same as the old Butterfly keyboard in terms of Typing experience.
We're finally back on track to the cyberpunk "anything goes" vision i think is gonna be the final winner of the design wars.
consumers don't give a shit about consistency. they want fun
consumers don't give a shit about consistency. they want fun
There is still some "fun" left in macOS, but it's harder and harder to find.
Three examples: Enlarge the network icon for a Windows, or unknown computer, and you'll see the monitor has a BSOD on it.
Enlarge the icon for Mail and you'll see the postmark on the stamp reads, "Hello From California."
Enlarge the icon for Pages, and there's a fun little travelogue.
There used to be an Apple program that had the famous "Misfits" text on it. I thought it was TextEdit, but it doesn't seem to be there anymore.
Three examples: Enlarge the network icon for a Windows, or unknown computer, and you'll see the monitor has a BSOD on it.
Enlarge the icon for Mail and you'll see the postmark on the stamp reads, "Hello From California."
Enlarge the icon for Pages, and there's a fun little travelogue.
There used to be an Apple program that had the famous "Misfits" text on it. I thought it was TextEdit, but it doesn't seem to be there anymore.
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I’m not such a fan of all this Jony Ive bashing. It seems unfair to ascribe the whole minimal/flat design movement to him. I remember reading that in university he designed a pen with a part that was for ‘fiddling’ with in meetings, completely non functional other than to satisfy people so I somehow doubt he is the minimalist Puritan he is painted as in so many articles like this.
Bringing back skeuomorphic ornamentation is not “fun.” Susan Kare’s original Mac icons, (bitmap icons, not that it matters), now those were fun!
Hooray! I am so happy to see this. Like the author, I’ve been hoping for skeuomorphic design to return ever since it went out of vogue. I honestly didn’t expect it to happen. I thought Apple would go even farther away from it, eventually removing the beautiful shadow around each window.
With Apple’s flat design, you can’t even tell that buttons are buttons. They just look like labels.
With Apple’s flat design, you can’t even tell that buttons are buttons. They just look like labels.
Let me be the only leperous pariah in this thread to mention that the same rationale can be applied to the way we dress, as a culture of design professionals and engineers.
Because UI trends can come in and out of fashion but hoodies and T's are for life I get it.
Any ex-military in this thread understand the importance of dressing up to pass muster?
Because UI trends can come in and out of fashion but hoodies and T's are for life I get it.
Any ex-military in this thread understand the importance of dressing up to pass muster?
Except even hoodies are going in multiple directions fashion design wise. techwear,leisurewear,exercisewear(as seen in avengers infinity war) etc
Total bullshit. The hoodie went out with the tonsure in the middle ages. How about rope belts, are they making a comeback too?
Ok. I'll concede the hoodie has some utility for beach culture but in the office? C'mon.
Ok. I'll concede the hoodie has some utility for beach culture but in the office? C'mon.
I see literally no reason why this new aesthetic was not possible to introduce 7 years ago. The mindset was there, the tools, and the culture. It’s puzzling, and should be considered an epic failure imo.
The best design, of course,is and will always be LCARS.
Regrettably, nobody knows how it works or which buttons do what... but it makes up for it with soothing beeps and clicks.
Regrettably, nobody knows how it works or which buttons do what... but it makes up for it with soothing beeps and clicks.
> They’re squircles alright
I pulled out a ruler and they have flat sides, so — round rects are everywhere!
I pulled out a ruler and they have flat sides, so — round rects are everywhere!
This makes perfect sense if you ignore the existence of every software vendor other than Apple.
[deleted]
How about instead of "fun" we work on "fixing bugs" and "usability"? Just off the top of my head:
- I miss the old copy and paste UI that Apple originally had on iOS. The magnifying glass worked so well. Now we have the "pure" design where you just drag the cursor. This is partially obscured by your finger and it can be so difficult to get that cursor between narrow letters (like "i" and "l", mainly because they're sans serif pretty much always). If you overshoot you can backspace and type in. If you go too far to the left you have to repeat the whole process. It's just dumb.
- Face ID is so dumb, I miss Touch ID. I get you want to have the full front face for the screen. Do what Samsung did and put a sensor on the back. Apple argues there are too many false positives on Touch ID. I don't care about that. I do however care about all the false negatives on Face ID.
- Let me control security. 5 failures of Face ID = a prompt for your PIN code. I don't want this but I can't change it. Because of all the false negatives I have to enter my PIN code way too often;
- Swipe up is a terrible replacement to the Home button. Again, this is all in the name of screen real estate. I've heard it says that design is the art of compromise. What made the Macbook Air amazing was that it was the "correct" compromise. Fast forward to Johnny Ive's war on thickness and you have the disaster that was the 12" Macbook. That's what happen when you optimize for one thing only to the extreme. So for the edge-to-edge screen we have this swipe up nonsense. Why is it bad? Because which way you swipe depends on which way the app is oriented. Some don't change orientation with the phone so it's a side swipe "up". Some do but the trigger to change orientation fails for some reason. The gestures to get to app selection (with a weird swipe up and right) are strictly worse than a double press of the Home button;
- I swear swiping for text entry continues to get worse. As one example, if you try and swipe something and get, say, "Rome" instead of "tome", you now have a capitalized word. Delete it and swipe in "tome" and it'll appear as "Tome" because obviously you meant to keep capitalization even though you never chose capitalization in the first place.
- Often the keyboard will end up obscuring my messages, like iMessage fails to account for it being there so I have to dismiss it and open it again and it'll scroll up like it should've done. This bug has been around for months;
- Flat design is stupid. The pendulum has swung too far from skeuomorphic design. The whole point of the old design was to give affordances to prompt user behaviour. The designers have gone insane and completely thrown out this key element of UI/UX design.
So before we think about "fun" how about we first tick off "functional"?
- I miss the old copy and paste UI that Apple originally had on iOS. The magnifying glass worked so well. Now we have the "pure" design where you just drag the cursor. This is partially obscured by your finger and it can be so difficult to get that cursor between narrow letters (like "i" and "l", mainly because they're sans serif pretty much always). If you overshoot you can backspace and type in. If you go too far to the left you have to repeat the whole process. It's just dumb.
- Face ID is so dumb, I miss Touch ID. I get you want to have the full front face for the screen. Do what Samsung did and put a sensor on the back. Apple argues there are too many false positives on Touch ID. I don't care about that. I do however care about all the false negatives on Face ID.
- Let me control security. 5 failures of Face ID = a prompt for your PIN code. I don't want this but I can't change it. Because of all the false negatives I have to enter my PIN code way too often;
- Swipe up is a terrible replacement to the Home button. Again, this is all in the name of screen real estate. I've heard it says that design is the art of compromise. What made the Macbook Air amazing was that it was the "correct" compromise. Fast forward to Johnny Ive's war on thickness and you have the disaster that was the 12" Macbook. That's what happen when you optimize for one thing only to the extreme. So for the edge-to-edge screen we have this swipe up nonsense. Why is it bad? Because which way you swipe depends on which way the app is oriented. Some don't change orientation with the phone so it's a side swipe "up". Some do but the trigger to change orientation fails for some reason. The gestures to get to app selection (with a weird swipe up and right) are strictly worse than a double press of the Home button;
- I swear swiping for text entry continues to get worse. As one example, if you try and swipe something and get, say, "Rome" instead of "tome", you now have a capitalized word. Delete it and swipe in "tome" and it'll appear as "Tome" because obviously you meant to keep capitalization even though you never chose capitalization in the first place.
- Often the keyboard will end up obscuring my messages, like iMessage fails to account for it being there so I have to dismiss it and open it again and it'll scroll up like it should've done. This bug has been around for months;
- Flat design is stupid. The pendulum has swung too far from skeuomorphic design. The whole point of the old design was to give affordances to prompt user behaviour. The designers have gone insane and completely thrown out this key element of UI/UX design.
So before we think about "fun" how about we first tick off "functional"?
Apple is not bringing back the fun — designers & web decorators didn't have the balls to push the barriers and surrendered to everything default with the advent of Web 2.0. Screen design has been desperate for an 80s moment since then.
Is it me or it looks like rip off of KDE.
Busy work for people who really shouldn't be in tech is what UI design has become.
We had great UI, then tech branched out and we need to redo every UI continuously so the marketing people (who mostly also don't belong in tech) can boast of new and improved this and that. It's all so tiresome.
We had great UI, then tech branched out and we need to redo every UI continuously so the marketing people (who mostly also don't belong in tech) can boast of new and improved this and that. It's all so tiresome.
I generally welcome this trend, but speech bubbles are not supposed to be three-dimensional shapes like that. It makes no sense whatsoever and it looks disturbing to me.
Another benefit of that hack Jony Ive's departure, and yet more proof that he was worse than useless without the firm grip of Steve Jobs to guide him.
And as to Ive, he cannot even claim to have originated flat design, it was a slavish imitation of Microsoft and Google's design.
And as to Ive, he cannot even claim to have originated flat design, it was a slavish imitation of Microsoft and Google's design.
Maybe I'm out of the loop. Why is Ive a "hack"?
* Not having this conversation with my mom (who, at 60+, is remarkably adept with computers but hey, we all run into trouble sometimes) over the phone anymore:
Me: Okay mom, now press the "Edit" button
Mom: Which one's the edit button?
Me: Uh, the... um, it's the one that kindda looks like... a bunch of lines in a rectangle, I guess?
Mom: Alex they all look like lines in a rectangle
* Not hovering everything for five minutes until I can figure out what I can click and what I can't click (for bonus points: not trying to click something for five minutes like an idiot, only to find out it's a label, not a disabled button)
* Buttons, tree views, tabs and all that having relief borders again, not necessarily because I like that, but because without it, the only way to "isolate" the information in them is using whitespace, and seven years of flat design hell later I can fit only slightly more content on my 1920x1080 screen than I could fit my Amiga's 1024x768 screen 20+ years ago.
* Being able to tell file types apart from each other when I'm browsing at minimum zoom level -- which is how you end up browsing any collection of more than a few dozen items or so
* Being able to tell application icons apart based on what's in the icons, not based on colours. People keep parroting this idea that "symbolic icons are easily to tell apart from each other because they're so simple" but when all icons are a letter or some anonymous symbol on a blob of colour, they all look the same when you put a few dozen of them next to each other. Maybe they're easy to tell apart when you have like four 128x128px icons but when you have 40 of them in a tiny dock at the bottom of your screen, the only useful information they retain is what colour they are.