
Destroying Apple’s Legacy - milen
http://cheerfulsw.com/2015/destroying-apples-legacy/
======
epistasis
I have found the flat design incredibly difficult to use.

In particular, the new Apple Music app was almost completely undiscoverable
for me. It wasn't until I was reading patch notes that I realized that it had
a key feature that I had been searching the UI for more than a month. That
feature was to show only the music available offline, and it's hidden behind a
down arrow next to a heading label. (Rather than the ... that other menus
have).

Apple has never been perfect at UIs, but they've always been better than this
in my experience. Deciding to hide key information and be as cryptic as
possible works great for designers that already know the UI, but it works
terribly for users that are still learning it. This type of elementary
mistake, all too common by those who are deep in the act of creation, is best
corrected by stepping back from the problem and approaching everything with
the mind of a beginner. That or giving the device to an outsider and observing
them, good old fashioned trials.

That's what UX needs these days, not more fashionistas trying to remove data
and UI cues. The industry needs a big wakeup call. Mobile and even the web
(like Google Docs) are becoming a churn of bad experience.

~~~
roymurdock
Agreed on the new iTunes and iPhone Music app. I had to re-learn how to
shuffle songs, and how to pull up the album of the song that was playing the
other day. Extremely non-intuitive and hidden behind 4-5 interactions.

All for the sake of cramming in new paid features that I'll never use - "For
You", "New", "Radio", and "Connect". Why Apple? You make enough money from
iPhone sales already. Is Apple Radio really going to add that much to your
bottom line?

~~~
cheshire137
You can make the 'Connect' button into something a little more useful. In the
Settings app, go to General > Restrictions and turn off Apple Music Connect.
The 'Connect' button will then be replaced with 'Playlists.'

~~~
roymurdock
Thanks for this great tip. Again, another totally non-intuitive way to make
Music 10x better.

Tangent: I wonder if people who work at Apple browse HN and see these kinds of
complaints regularly? It would be weird to work at a big company that gets a
lot of press on HN and stealthily get direct user feedback from a tech forum.

~~~
sbuk
Sorry, I don't follow. It's unituititive to have a settings change under
settings, where settings for built in apps have always been?

~~~
ScottBurson
You have to have some reason to think a setting might exist before you'll go
looking for it. If it's unintuitive to think that a particular piece of
functionality might be controlled by a setting at all, the fact that it would
be easy to find the setting if you knew it existed is of little help.

~~~
sbuk
There is an obvious line between being non-intuitive or unobvious and reasons
to think something exists or not. A UI cannot rely solely on intuition alone;
investigation must be encouraged too.

------
matthewmacleod
Bit over-the-top I think, with some misleading statements.

Apple still publish the HIG. See the iOS version here:
[https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserEx...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/)

Contrary to what the article says, it does explain why various UI elements are
designed as they are – not just thoughtless promotion of aesthetics over
interaction.

I think people often fall back on 'nobody thought about this and it's rubbish'
arguments when the reality is often closer to 'they changed this and I don't
like it' – the latter is a _totally valid_ complaint, but it's also
qualitatively different.

In my personal experience, I've not seen computer-naïve users of iOS struggle
to a greater degree with iOS 7+ than with any of the previous versions. YMMV
of course, but I think the extent to which it's a problem is overstated.

There are a couple of exceptions, of course – the reminders app has some
stupid UI decisions that irritate me. But what software doesn't? How about
that floating 'create a new document' button that was in Google
Docs/Sheets/etc. until recently? _Every single time_ I opened it, I had to
hunt around for the button to create a new document because it wasn't where I
expected it to be. But that doesn't mean Material is awful – it just means
that it's a complex, long-term challenge to create a consistent UI applicable
to a wide variety of applications. And I don't think modern UX is all that
bad.

~~~
acomjean
As someone who answered questions about ios 8 for people that have never used
it. Its not as intuitive as people think.

The "switch" icons (or described to me as two circles next to one another)
seem to be a source of confusion. Which direction is on? Why?

~~~
rikkus
Amusingly you can change something in accessibility that adds a 1 and a 0 to
the switches. For some reason I'm still unclear... Does pressing it make it 1
because I can see the 1 to press, or is it now 1 (yes). Android by default has
off and on displayed. No idea how they make this work in languages where the
equivalent words are longer.

~~~
euyyn
I guess they stick to "on" and "off". After decades of electronic and electric
devices labeled in English, words like those or "play"/"stop" are pretty well
understood.

------
astrodust
"Apple used to lead the world in interface design" does not mean their designs
were without serious flaws. Nobody would get up and defend System 7 as the
pinnacle of usability, it was downright quirky and strange in places, and by
the time System 9 arrived it'd gotten downright surreal. Things only made
sense in the context of history.

The difference between Apple and other companies is not that Apple gets it
right every time, but that Apple genuinely _tries_. Some other companies
literally do not care how their products look, they just ship whatever the
engineering team cobbles together with snippets from from Google Image Search.

Microsoft's making similar efforts lately, so that's encouraging to see, and
even Google is making strides in reducing the amount of rampant ugly in their
applications.

~~~
oconnore
> reducing the amount of rampant ugly in their applications

The fact that you are talking about "ugly" is the entire problem.

~~~
nemo44x
Form and function are both equally important.

~~~
tsotha
Not in a device. Function is the most important. Form should not interfere
with function.

~~~
nemo44x
Why? Have you studied this? Have you read research that proves otherwise? When
did I suggest form interferes with function? The idea that form and function
are one says functionality and form are equally important. And there's good
reason for this when humans are using your device.

I believe your bias comes from your position as someone who's work is create
functionality. You see that as the complete product and by virtue of your
intimacy with it, the most important. But you're missing the entire picture.

Start reading here [1] and I suggest you read the entire article.

[1]
[http://alistapart.com/article/indefenseofeyecandy#section3](http://alistapart.com/article/indefenseofeyecandy#section3)

~~~
tsotha
>Have you studied this?

There's nothing to study. What could you even mean by that? I'm sure there's
an entire caste of useless "designers" who do all sorts of "research" to make
themselves feel important, but in the real world people buy devices to perform
tasks.

If that's not what you want it for buy some jewelry instead.

~~~
nemo44x
There's actually a lot to study backed by quantitive evidence. Your business
will suffer if you only focus on the function and fail to consider form.

Do you think the Tesla Model S would have been a success had it the same
design and form as previous attempts at an EV? The function of the car was far
superior, obviously but the form was as well.

Both of these elements matter and if you only have 1 or the other, you lose.

~~~
tsotha
The Tesla styling doesn't interfere with the function of the car, and if it
did the car wouldn't sell.

I'm not saying the form has no importance at all. It's just that you don't
sacrifice function for form.

~~~
nemo44x
I think that's the entire point of "they're one". You're not working with a
finite amount of status points here. Giving to one does not take away from the
other and if it is then you're doing it wrong. The idea is that the form does
in fact matter. A lot. But form at the expense of function would be function
follows form which, although a philosophy, is probably suboptimal.

What I'm trying to say is you don't say "lets make it work" and think of the
form as an afterthought - as a "nice to have". We need to make it work and
make it beautiful. Both are important and comprise the essence of what we are
trying to build. Otherwise what's the point?

------
gok
The leading complaints about the "Edit Alarm" screen is kinda weird...unless
"Apple’s new direction" means Apple's new direction post-2006.

The new: [https://unicornfree.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_7374....](https://unicornfree.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/09/IMG_7374.png) The old: [http://i1-news.softpedia-
static.com/images/news2/Apple-iOS-S...](http://i1-news.softpedia-
static.com/images/news2/Apple-iOS-Software-Update-Patch-Ready-for-Alarm-
Bug-2.png)

There was always a "time-wasting dial." The labels were always "styled with
more visual impact than the actual data." All four different types of data
elements were always "styled the same, with the same visual weight."

~~~
AlexandrB
Yeah, the dials were always a questionable idea :(

The one thing they're good at though is giving information on what's
above/below the current option without having to click/tap (unlike a combo
box).

Is there a better interaction model for this kind of operation?

~~~
inyorgroove
I think android has a nice UI for this takes tow taps: 1\. Select hour:
[http://i.imgur.com/0SZGvUA.png?1](http://i.imgur.com/0SZGvUA.png?1) 2\.
Select minutes
[http://i.imgur.com/UOj43B6.png?1](http://i.imgur.com/UOj43B6.png?1)

~~~
comex
Urgh. At least in my case, when I set an alarm, I already know what time I
want and really don't benefit from any kind of visualization - so just give me
a keypad and let me tap in the digits, something everything from the phone app
to my microwave has trained me to do quickly, rather than confusing me with a
one-of-a-kind UI element.

Luckily, I don't have to care because I just use Siri to set and manage
alarms.

~~~
Rockslide
You do benefit. When typing the time, you have to tap at least four times.
With Androids visualization, you can enter the time with two taps. I'd call
that a benefit...

------
Pxtl
Imho, the problem is that flat design is intensely restrictive. Suddenly
things that used to be available to freely design with have become UI cues...
the designer can no longer play with color and layout and let the buttons
stand out by button-bevel and the like... now the color and layout are part of
the UI language.

Apple, being a design-oriented company, can't keep fiddling with individual
app layouts, which means they can't work within the hyper-restrictive design
language of flat.

Microsoft actually does much better with flat, I find, because I think there
are less cooks in the "design" kitchen there.

~~~
RogtamBar
The 'flat' design is a complete abomination compared to what came before. I
could not believe my eyes when my dad showed me W10.

I despair about humanity. Idiots following fashion instead of utility.

~~~
matthewmacleod
Meanwhile, back in the 'I'm not superior to everybody else' mere mortal's
world…

Discarding flat design as 'abomination' by 'idiots' is rather missing some of
the wider design context.

Take a look back as Swiss design from the 50s, for example. Lots of use of
minimalism, bold colour, simple typography (Helvetica, even!). It's remarkably
similar in some senses; one of the reasons it became popular was because of
the perception that design had become fussy and overburdened by ornamental
detail.

I think we saw the same process of design evolution with modern flat designs.
There was certainly a perception among some designers that it was difficult to
build modern interfaces in part due to the cruft which had been accumulated
over the years. Look at an iOS 6 device, for example; even though it's been
only a few year, it looks utterly baroque to my eyes now. Needless lines,
textures, gradients and shadows that obviously served a functional purpose at
one point, but with that purpose gradually diluted as the functionality and
interaction patterns of software evolved. Building to modern requirements –
with things like touch-oriented interfaces and responsive applications – can
become much more complex with these constraints.

The thing is, design approaches will evolve over time. Designers, developers
and UX folk will continue to tweak and adjust designs to offer a better
experience. It's not always going to be right, or even visually appealing, but
it's also a field that experiences constant change. Look at Google's Material,
for example – it's not simply flat, but involves the use of animation, subtle
gradients and shadows.

~~~
AlexandrB
> I think we saw the same process of design evolution with modern flat
> designs. There was certainly a perception among some designers that it was
> difficult to build modern interfaces in part due to the cruft which had been
> accumulated over the years. Look at an iOS 6 device, for example; even
> though it's been only a few year, it looks utterly baroque to my eyes now.

It's funny, the more time goes by the more I miss iOS 6 and company. Comparing
flat UI design to Swiss design from the 50s is missing the obvious difference
that minimal Swiss design was about presenting information, not creating an
interactive interface.

As the linked article points out, discarding affordances has a very real cost
to someone learning the interface - it becomes harder to separate interactive
elements from non interactive ones and harder to tell "on" from "off" (I STILL
can't tell if iOS's shift is on by looking at it [1]). The desire to _present_
information in a modern/minimalist way is at odds with this.

My personal opinion is that what you call "wider design context" is pure
fashion. Yes, flat is fashionable, but it's just not as good at the job of
communicating the _nature_ of UI elements to the user.

[1] Edit: Just to add, Apple's difficulty with making the state of the shift
key obvious is a microcosm of this overall problem. The expressive power of
flat design language is _so limited_ that indicating the state of a single
element is problematic despite several attempts. iOS 9 finally solves this by
changing the case of _every letter on the keyboard_ to make it obvious.

~~~
matthewmacleod
_Comparing flat UI design to Swiss design from the 50s is missing the obvious
difference that minimal Swiss design was about presenting information, not
creating an interactive interface._

Yes – they're different. Obviously so – there's 60 years between here and
there. The point is to compare the minimalist approach, and point out that
there is precedent for it. There is no absolute, guaranteed, 100% 'ideal' user
interface, and it's something that we are still working on – iterating on
design is how we do that.

 _it becomes harder to separate interactive elements from non interactive ones
and harder to tell "on" from "off" (I STILL can't tell if iOS's shift is on by
looking at it). The desire to present information in a modern/minimalist way
is at odds with this._

The iOS shift key is a good example of where this had failed (and I do hope it
is fixed). But here's an alternative take – presenting information in a
minimal fashion can help to draw attention to interactivity, rather than
distract from it, thanks to the elimination of visual noise. The point is,
it's far from clear what the best approach is.

 _My personal opinion is that what you call "wider design context" is pure
fashion. Yes, flat is fashionable, but it's just not as good at the job of
communicating the nature of UI elements to the user._

I don't think that's a case, or that such design can be called a 'fad'. Design
is still an evolving field – devices and the way we use them is changing, and
design is no different. I won't deny that there's an element of fashion, in
the sense that the popularity of design styles can influence other designers.
But isn't that equally explainable as a desire to avoid completely 'off the
wall' interfaces that will be unfamiliar to users?

FWIW, I don't find flat interfaces to be an issue. Metro, for example, was
simple and elegant, while allowing for useful approaches to clearly displaying
and exploring information. And the iOS approach, though it has
inconsistencies, actually makes a lot of sense, with the 'content is king' and
'depth through translucency' approaches. Most of the problems with the latter
appear to be to do with the expression of state.

~~~
AlexandrB
> And the iOS approach, though it has inconsistencies, actually makes a lot of
> sense, with the 'content is king' and 'depth through translucency'
> approaches.

I think that's the key difference. The 'content is king' approach is great for
consuming visual content but less good for applications that are not about
content consumption but about interaction. If I'm reading a website, I want
the UI chrome to get out of the way and not distract me visually - on the
other hand if I'm trying to reschedule something in my calendar I want the
options and interaction points available to me to be obvious so that I can
make the change quickly and accurately.

------
guelo
I've had conclusive data that a 3D-looking button was converting significantly
better but have been overruled because of the "sleek", "clean" bullshit that
passes for design these days.

~~~
woah
With that argument, at some point you're just advocating pop-up flashing neon
banners.

~~~
paublyrne
That's a bit of a leap. There is nothing wrong with having your call to action
pop, and a lot of thought is given by designers to position, colour, context,
text, and texture, in order to ensure that it does.

Maybe a button that doesn't look that much like a button doesn't entice us as
much as one that does.

------
akamaka
It's funny to read this, because I personally find iOS to have by far the best
UI of any mobile OS, and I consider the flat design of iOS7 to be a big step
forward.

Other people feel differently, and they consider Android superior, so clearly
there is a difference in taste.

The conundrum is that nobody seems to be able to clearly articulate why this
is, and this article doesn't really help. For example, it says the timepicker
is "awkward, time-wasting, inaccurate". Compared to what? Has anyone been able
to measure how much time it wastes and how innaccurate it is?

In the end, this article takes a thousand words to say little more than "This
doesn't feel quite right to me", and doesn't reveal any root causes. Do people
prefer different UIs because of differences in finger size, manual dexerity,
visual attention? Does Apple's UI cater to a specific minority of users? Do
biological differences make it impossible to satisfy everyone?

~~~
woebtz
Flat design looks nice, but provides less affordances.

In practice, flat designs have less detail, so convey less information. This
leads to uncertainty/doubt/cognitive load where there was none before.

Compare flat to skeumorphic designs:

* What gestures can I perform on this UI element?

* Where is the button/what can I click on?

-or better yet-

* What state is the iOS keyboard's shift key in (activated, deactivated, capslocked)?

Apple isn't the only culprit, Android/Material design is similarly flat and
less usable.

~~~
norea-armozel
If you think iOS 7/8/9 are hard to use, try Windows Phone 8. I had a Lumia 620
for a while and it was pretty hard to understand what was going on for some
applications (aside from the fact that their back button behavior was
something that was completely confusing). It's odd too because some of the
non-Microsoft WP8 apps were very easy to use by comparison, but the Microsoft
designed apps were the worse in terms of usability for me. So, I'm not sure if
its the design aesthetics at play here or maybe just that some developers are
better are conveying what certain UI elements do and what to expect from them.
Either way, I think there has to be a middle ground between removing clutter
from UI and avoiding what amounts to snow blindness for computers. In my
opinion, the Material Design spec by Google is closer to the sweet spot than
what I've seen so far (I think it needs more UI hinting of some kind and less
empty space which makes it harder for me to focus on what's going on in an
app).

------
kps

      > Minimalism in software is achieved by simplifying feature sets,
      > not stripping away pixels.
    

<rant>

 _Simplifying feature sets_ should not mean _reducing functionality_. That is
the lazy way. Simplicity should remove the extraneous, redundant, and
inefficient; functionality is not that. Functionality with simplicity requires
things generality, orthogonality, composability....

Good software engineers eventually learn to be able to do this for the _code_
they produce (whether the business case allows it is a separate question). It
_should_ be possible for good UI designers to do likewise.

</rant>

Edit: I am not disagreeing with the article author here:

    
    
      > It’s not minimalism to rip away the very things your users need.

------
hyperion2010
A lingering question of mine: "Has anyone _actually_ done UI research since
the 70s or are all these 'innovations' just bullshit?"

~~~
agumonkey
Even if they do research it's a vastly different context. <70s was niche and
rich. Nowadays it's for the mainstream. I recently learned that Xerox GUI had
an OO copy function. A generic one, for any object. When Jobs and Gates took
the GUI, they mostly brought the metaphor, not the underlying ideas.

~~~
marssaxman
What is the "OO copy function" you mean, and how was it different from the
"copy" operation on the Edit menu in the Mac UI?

~~~
agumonkey
IIRC in a demo they were copying a UI element, a whole panel or a window. It
felt like a live object playground. AFAIK other OSes where limited to semi-
type strings.

~~~
mcphage
> other OSes where limited to semi-type strings

Nope, it can be used for general data. On OS X (since that's what I'm most
familiar with) you can put any data you want on the clipboard, and even list
the types that you can provide it in, so when it gets pasted, the target can
specify which format they want it in.

For instance, copying and pasting files to duplicate them is a common
operation on many operating systems.

------
joesmo
Once a UI design is perfected, as is the case often, companies continue to
look for ways to change it simply for the sake of changing it and so they can
announce something new. This is true of both Apple and Google in the mobile
phone space. Every single time, the new UI is worse because it hasn't been
tested and no designer can think of everything. There was nothing wrong with
UIs before the flat design. Flat design didn't solve anything. But once Apple
implemented it, everyone had to have it. If you don't have it, your app is not
"slick" and "cool." And yes, those subjective qualities matter way more than
the quality of your app or really, anything else.

------
Silhouette
Oh, man, I have never wished so much that I could upvote a submission more
than once. I wish this article could be pinned at the top of every discussion
site used by web and app designers for the next... forever.

The only thing in the design world that I find more infuriating than the
current trends, and the accompanying blandness and usability issues, is when
people try to justify those trends as being somehow superior to what we had
before using the worst kind of retro-fitted mumbo jumbo. At least let's be
honest that most places have adopted flat design because it's _cheap, easy,
and quick_.

At the bottom end of the market, making UIs a commodity is in itself no bad
thing. For web applications, you can implement flat design in pure CSS,
cutting down the bandwidth required for images. More generally, typical flat
design elements are nicely scalable and Retina-ready, because everything is
all done with such trivial vector graphics that no real effort or creativity
is needed. You can adapt the simple layouts more easily to small screens as
well. In fact, why develop anything original or even hire anyone with design
skills at all, when you can just slap Bootstrap on it and charge the client an
extra 200% for making the site responsive?

Unfortunately, for anything above the bottom end of the market, and
particularly for promoting UIs that offer better usability and/or more
distinctive styles, the current trends are awful for all the reasons this
article sets out.

------
nemo44x
Not that Apple has perfect UI's (The clock dial is awful) but I feel like the
ideas expressed in this article are that a UI should be designed as if the
user is always using it for the first time. And that simply isn't true. With
such a small screen a lot of things need to be considered, such as how easy is
it to press a button without moving the hand and if this means sacrificing
some natural ease of use - so be it. The user will still quickly learn how the
UI works and adapt quickly.

------
kitsunesoba
While the old iOS look was getting a little cheesy by the time iOS 6 rolled
around, it was indeed very clear for the most part. Wooden bookshelves in
iBooks might not have had much function, but the shading and glassy look on
controls certainly did.

As an example, coming from the angle of an individual who'd never approached a
smartphone in his life, the function of the iOS 6 picker/spinner was
immediately obvious. The shading and glassy highlights made it look like a
real spinner and practically begged the user to interact with it. Distinct
section separators made it perfectly clear that each section can be spun
separately.

Compare this to the picker in iOS 7 and up. Not only is there no shading or
highlights to suggest how to interact with it, but now there are no separators
— even if one presumes that it can be spun, it looks like the whole thing
would spin. To make things worse, oddly skeumorphic 3D perspective has been
added into the mix, presumably to try to suggest spinnability, but without
partner cues it's just confusing. With this design, so much is left unknown
until the user attempts interaction.

Reference screenshot: [http://blog.ittybittyapps.com/images/posts/lifting-the-
lid-o...](http://blog.ittybittyapps.com/images/posts/lifting-the-lid-on-
ios-7s-uipicker/UIDatePickerComparison.jpg)

I personally feel that Apple struck a nice balance between design modesty,
usability, and aesthetics with Mavericks desktop, but that's gone with
Yosemite. Interestingly though, El Capitan adds in subtle hints of shading and
depth in a few places. I wonder if we'll see things start to tilt back in the
other direction with OS X 10.12 and iOS 10.

------
lips
Here's a secret. Apple has _never_ designed truly wonderful user interaction.
But they have been unafraid to say "no," less horrible than most others, and
opinionated. These discussions don't benefit from a false narrative of them
falling from a grace they never held. (Mac owner from plus to pad)

------
Shivetya
the dramatic loss of color and warmth when the new look came about took me
back to the days when I had a PS/2 50z with the VGA gray scale monitor. While
everything can look well defined it does at times look a little too stark; if
software could have a dystopian air to it compared to what came before they
did well.

------
rsp1984
I could not agree more with this article. Human brains are hard-wired to infer
3D structure from shading. Taking away shading means taking away 3D structure,
means taking away one of the most important visual cues there is to help
humans grasp interfaces.

Also, coming from all the print media, human brains are conditioned to detect
and separate important/immediate from un-important/less immediate content by
looking at overall page structure and relative weights. Deciding against bold
or large fonts for the looks takes that away too.

Finally there is a ton of research pointing to the fact that fonts with a
healthy amount of thickness is more easy to read than thin fonts. The debate
is still on about serifed fonts I guess but using Light Helvetica for kind of
everything quite certainly is a step in the wrong direction.

~~~
rikkus
Yes I have an ipod and changed the font to thick and turned off the swoopy
animations. You can do this via accessibility

------
Bartweiss
At this point, a lot of decisions that were once skeuomorphic are now a matter
of tradition and user expectation. For a whole generation, the image of a
floppy means "save" not because of it's physical history but because that's
the icon everyone else uses for "save".

Abandoning choices like "button means clickable" and "colored and underlined
means link" isn't just a move to flat design, it's an attempt to retrain users
on software conventions that have transcended their physical origins.

~~~
epistasis
Sure, the floppy doesn't communicate anything to anybody except as a cryptic
artifact of the past.

But other design language, like buttons and underlined links, communicate
based on the necessity for some sort of language. Changing this language to
something else should not occur unless there's some tangible benefit to the
change.

Language changes all the time, but normal language change happens in the
course of two-way communication between people. UI language is more one-way,
it's like a speech that's delivered to an audience. If a speaker delivers a
speak using an entirely new language that the audience doesn't understand,
there had better be 1) some benefit to the change of language, and 2) clear
communication to the audience about what the new language is.

Apple, Google, and Microsoft have failed on both points 1) and 2) in too many
cases, IMHO. Languages are fashion, to some degree, but they are also
functional. Flat UI has in too many cases placed the emphasis on looking cool
and pushing "forward" over the primary point of a UI, which is to communicate
to the user.

------
ovatsug25
My company does a lot of paperwork. It turns out people want to work on
something that looks like "paper" or the final printed out result. The idea of
an interface with buttons may be commonplace to us, but there are many people
for whom this is equally impossible.

------
DasIch
> There was never any evidence that a few decorative pixels hurt the user.

Is there any evidence that removing them does?

> The HIG wasn’t about aesthetics, it was about interaction.

> It was based on research, not trends.

It's not about interaction now? It's not about research now? In which ways
isn't it?

I believe skeumorphism is just about aesthetics and trends. Well, actually I
don't, I'm not sure what I should think I'm not aware of any research and
can't make a good argument either way. Unlike the author I don't pretend I can
though.

There might be a problem, it might just be a figment of the authors
imagination. In either case articles like this one certainly are a problem.

------
zeveb
Great, and true, article—but interestingly, he's guilty of a similar thing:
his CSS makes it impossible to tell visited vs. never-visited links.

~~~
ddagradi
"she" (or "they" if you're not certain) - the author is a woman.

~~~
zeveb
Whoops. I didn't see any information regarding her sex on the article, which
is why I used—as is correct for English—'he.' I'd never use 'they.'

------
amelius
> ... has produced some of the best industrial design in the history of
> consumer products.

Like the completely non-ergonomic, design-over-function, keyboards?

~~~
matthewmacleod
That's a weak complaint – even if one of their products was not the best, it
doesn't prevent the rest from being.

That aside, Apple's keyboards aren't bad IMO. I'm pretty happy with them
generally – they have decent durability, enough key travel, and are relatively
quiet. Certainly better than the keyboards provided as standard by any other
major computer manufacturer.

~~~
scott_karana
> Certainly better than the keyboards provided as standard by any other major
> computer manufacturer.

What?! Every OEM makes "inoffensive", reasonable keyboards just like Apple.
They only differ in visual design.

------
devy
"so apple legal call was not a threat. it was a request. b.c. jony ive was
personally offended by our soundboard. what world do i live in?"[1] - by the
author Amy Hoy

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/amyhoy/status/642446087802982400](https://twitter.com/amyhoy/status/642446087802982400)

------
gress
The author wasn't around when MacOS was new, otherwise she'd remember that the
things she thinks are obvious are just conventions that people had to learn.
Easier than a CLI, but something to learn just the same.

------
draw_down
Yes, they are doomed. Doomed!!

------
happyscrappy
Not that Google has a legacy of great design, but don't all these points apply
to Material as well?

~~~
on_and_off
More or less.

Microsoft, Apple and Google are all pursuing variations of what can be called
flat design.

There are many variations in flat design though. In the small details, Google
and Apple have as many similarities as differences.

One of the differences is that Material relies heavily on shadows (one of the
very few good design ideas from the first versions of Android). The most
important buttons are usually elevated.

Color is also used to inform the user. The accent color of the app is used to
color clickable elements.

I am currently in the process of implementing material design in a large scale
mobile android app. So far it is going extremely well, the new design
direction respond to many of our gripes with Holo and is good enough in order
to be able to make a strong point with the product team in order to implement
it instead of making a frankenmonster between iOS design & Holo like we did in
the past. Time will tell how well it performs with our users.

~~~
Pxtl
I'd argue that MS did a great job with flat design in Windows Phone 7 because
they were willing to sacrifice aesthetics for consistency. Everything on WP7
was stark black backgrounds, which made it _really_ obvious what was a button
- a colored box was always clickable.

The moment you let graphic designers in who care about making things look
good, flat design falls apart because they want to change it up.

Flat works if you let the designers construct the design language and then
never let them near the actual individual UIs and get tempted to deviate from
their original language.

------
vinceguidry
Software is harder than hardware. Both are incredibly hard, but software is
harder. Software has to rely on the hardware, that's why any truly serious
builder of software deeply understands the hardware and Apple understands
that, with limited resources, hardware is more important to get right.

You can always change software later. Hardware stays in the consumer's hands
for years. Bad decisions there will go uncorrected, even if you take the
extraordinary step of issuing a recall, not everyone will bring in their kit.

This dynamic means that every company that has limited means, that is to say,
every company, is going to have shitty software. Because hardware is more
important, so it gets all the design attention. But software is harder. And if
you're not doing hardware, like Microsoft, then your software is still going
to be shitty because you don't understand hardware.

It's why your VCR was famously hard to program, it's why the entertainment
system in your car is horrible, it's why the old stuff that doesn't have any
software at all is way more reliable than the new stuff that does.

The answer here is not to criticize Apple, but to help them out by engineering
better software. I used to hate texting on an iDevice because I loved using
Swype and iOS didn't have it. Apple responded to the market with Smart
Keyboards, they're not perfect but it beats the old way. Now they have an ad
blocking API for browsers.

Apple is the tech world's quality champion. No other company in the world can
pump out quality like Apple. But again, software is really fucking hard. So
let's work together here, folks. Show the world a new way.

~~~
cozzyd
Perhaps in support of your point, Microsoft's hardware products (keyboards,
Xboxes, the Surfaces) are excellent. Despite being an ardent Linux user, I
always buy Microsoft keyboards.

