
Flat UI is not the only way forward - co_pl_te
http://blog.maxrudberg.com/post/41005209081/flat-ui-is-not-the-only-way-forward
======
ChrisNorstrom
"[textures and ui effects like shadows and gradients] help you understand
behavior from looking at a static screen"

The winner. I wish designers would stop pursuing styles & fads and instead
pursue results. Stop worrying what's best for looks or minimalism and start
caring about usability and predictability.

~~~
rdtsc
From a non-designer's simple point of view, this flat thing is insanity.
Designers I find are very willing to follow latest fads and trends without
really evaluating or thinking about it.

Someone rebelled and wrote a blog how skeuomorphs are bad, put some pictures
of leather textures up for everyone to laugh at. The next thing you know, you
get OS UIs (Windows 8), websites and a whole bunch of other interfaces where
you have no freakin' idea what to click. It all looks flat and so I end up
mousing around elements on the screen like a drunk person stumbling in the
dark trying to find how this thing works.

How about a little drop shadow on that button so it looks like, you know, a
button? "Oh but it looks like a real world button and we shouldn't have to
mimic the real world...blah blah.." -- I don't care about the philosophy of
design or whatever the latest thing came from Apple labs, I want to get my
stuff done and just knowing what is clickable is helpful.

~~~
kruipen
This very page has over a dozen different click-able targets, and only one is
a button with a shadow. Yet we seem to be able to find our way around just
fine...

~~~
potatolicious
With due respect to pg, HN's UI is not something to aspire to, though it has
subtle things that make the difference between "meh, but usable" and "omgwtf".

The problem I've found with Windows 8 is that there is no visual difference
between clickable text/icons and nonclickable text icons. The whole experience
comes one of trial and error where you tap on random things like an idiot to
see what elicits a response and what doesn't.

The web's way of solving this problem is by underlining text that can be
clicked. HN violates this in many places, but at the very least text links
underline when moused over - not ideal, but works, and is something that
doesn't exist in touch-land.

Ditto, we've been using rollover effects for years to demarcate clickable
icons from the unclickable. This entire strategy is now kaput thanks to touch.

We don't necessarily have to have drop shadows, but what we do need is a
consistent and unambiguous language that clues the user into how the UI
operates. Windows 8 currently lacks this in a really, really bad way. We can
do this without skeumorphs, but we still need to do it.

And therein lies the greatest problem with this flat design trend - many
designers are going flat without remembering that skeumorphs carry a lot of
user hinting that you have to replicate.

~~~
kmfrk
Hn is also aimed at an audience who's HTML heuristics are perfectly honed to
detect a link, whatever it may look like.

------
kmfrk
"Flat UI" seems like an immense reluctance to give Microsoft credit for their
work on Metro.

I am reminded of this definition of Microsoft's Metro aesthetic by Andrew Kim:
[http://static.squarespace.com/static/50271a61c4aab6c54f9af5e...](http://static.squarespace.com/static/50271a61c4aab6c54f9af5ee/5028140ee4b0195d2ee37559/5028140ee4b0195d2ee37f83/1341178875001/1000w).

~ [http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/2012/7/3/the-next-
micro...](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/2012/7/3/the-next-
microsoft.html)

~~~
nikster
As a UX person I still give MS a fail on Windows 8. Yes it has a clean,
aesthetic look. But it lacks usability. And any design that is not primarily
focused on usability is best described as Kitsch. Even if it has all square
angles.

That does not mean I think Apples god-awful "tape deck" interface or the
horrors that are games center or find my friends are any good.

I am sick of designey people calling everything good that has a straight line.
To paraphrase Steve Jobs, design is how it works.

~~~
kmfrk
Windows 8 is horrible. I am not going to fight you on that one as someone
who's had plenty of trouble with it.

But it's not too much of a step back from Windows 7, so I find the more
strict, general design philosophy to be a vast improvement; the gradients and
Aero crap on Windows 7 and below was just so ugly to look at.

Windows's interface is horrible as always, and I don't envy people new to
Windows who bought a Surface. Yikes.

------
dsr_
That's far too reasonable and moderate an attitude to enrage, goad or inspire
a new Movement.

I hope more people adopt it.

------
jstsch
Another point to consider: I think regular users prefer a bit of textures,
gradients and real-life counterparts. It gives the UI a more friendly
appearance.

Never forget we're just monkeys.

~~~
rimantas
Those thing give UI something called affordance
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance>

~~~
kmfrk
It's pretty much the modern equivalent of the argument for always underlining
links to communicate that it can be clicked.

Dustin Curtis's flat approach to buttons and links is to use rounded borders:
<http://svbtle.com>. This will probably be how buttons will - and should -
work in a flat design.

~~~
hayksaakian
On the underline thing. While its not a need to have, it helps me recognize
links without thinking.

~~~
kmfrk
It's always a great rule of thumb. Especially with touch devices that obviate
:hover-based signalling.

------
ballard
The "leather" on iCal, FMF is distracting and should be eliminated.

An user-selectable UI stylesheet similar Pixate and Teacup for RubyMotion
would allow the user to select a view most comfortable for them: be it plain
or fancy, retro or modern, or even accessibility-enabled.

------
ameen
What I'd really like to see in iOS UI in the future would be uniformity in
design choices.

Many of Apple's own apps adopt different design styles instead of adopting a
single design language. Also, cleaning up "over-designed" skeuomorphic
interfaces might help a lot.

~~~
danso
I would love to read a short history of how the current skeuomorphic
interfaces came to be on iOS. There are a few good ones, but others are so
amateurish in comparison that it's as if an entirely separate company pushed
it out. I'm thinking of GameCenter, which even though I _know_ is a major part
of official iOS, I sometimes disable because my reflexive action is to disable
spammy-looking apps.

I'm not against all skeuomorphic designs....in Game Center's, the design is
just bizarrely tacky.

~~~
lucian1900
It gets worse. The contacts app on an iPad doesn't use all vertical space in
order to keep the aspect ratio of the booklet it imitates believable.

Very amateurish indeed, I'm baffled people praise Apple for UIs.

------
rglover
I've always looked at it from the perspective of who I'm designing for. From a
functional standpoint, certain users respond to certain affordances in a
design. For some, gradients and shadows are helpful when trying to discover
points of interaction. For others, a flat colored element with a certain shape
and hover color dictates the same thing.

The fight between styles is unnecessary. Think about who is using what you
make and their level of understanding. More importantly, though, never let
aesthetics inform functionality. Rather, let functionality inform the
aesthetics.

------
dwoldrich
I love these design discussions on HN, brings out many different specialties.

I know this isn't specifically a Microsoft thread, but I can't help myself...

I find myself wishing Microsoft would return to its hardcore productivity app
roots, and I don't feel Windows 8's Metro design serves me. Give me desktop
apps with multiple child windows and allot only a single, thin button bar and
the menu bar for the mouse clickers. Let me Ctrl-Tab/Ctrl-Shift-Tab between my
stack of child windows and Alt-Tab between my stack of processes.

Isn't this a form of minimal? To focus one's app and UI design on keyboard
accelerations and freeing up a maximum amount of screen real estate for
editors/data presentment? A throwback productivity-focused design like that
would demonstrate real bravery. Microsoft has already committed to balancing
touch with a keyboard and touchpad with their tablet design, so this could be
possible.

------
tope
Yes, Flat UI has its place and not the only way forward. One thing everyone is
missing is the author's statement about all knowing Jonny Ive being and an
expert in industrial design. UI design is a whole new beast.... That means
having a UI with only 10 shades of grey will be the best look

------
jarjoura
Ahh, well said. I think you nailed exactly the thinking inside Apple design.

Most everyone agrees that Calendar and Find My Friends UI adornments are way
over the top. Still, their target market is grandma and not us, so the
kitschy-ness of it all isn't as dramatic when you keep that in mind.

------
dakimov
Aren't corporations and designers in them just "design fascists"? "This is the
ultimate design that is only good for everybody in the world, for a little
girl and a brutal middle-aged man, you are not allowed to have your own
taste". Maybe everybody must also wear the same gray-colored minimalistic
clothes?

------
camus
flat ui is a design trend and like all trends it'll go away.

~~~
kmfrk
Basically, but it can still be a good one. Dieter Rahms had a pretty good
design trend going for instance. :)

All design is going to feel dated somehow, even though we can't imagine it in
the moment, but I think the flat design is going to age very gracefully
compared to a lot of the design memes today.

~~~
TorbjornLunde
I disagree, there is a lot of design that still feels quite modern, especially
within furniture (Dieter Ram’s famous shelving system holds up quite well for
instance). If you go for a timeless style it’s usually the technology
limitations (size for the product for instance) that gives away the design.

~~~
kmfrk
I meant design within software is always going to feel dated eventually,
because we don't have finalized hardware products like Ive's and Rams's
products.

There isn't really an idea of software design that's extricable from the
viewport, and that what I mean is going to make it look dated eventually.

