
Is timeless UI design a thing? - sandrobfc
https://www.imaginarycloud.com/blog/timeless-classic-ui-design/amp
======
deltron3030
Here's the inspiration for that article:
[http://www.aisleone.net/](http://www.aisleone.net/)

A very good and reknown site about the international style.

Apart from the Swiss stuff, or the beginnings at the Bauhaus most people know
about, the Ulm school of design is interesting for the holistic approach to
design.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulm_School_of_Design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulm_School_of_Design)

My personal feeling is that we're already leaving the reincanation of the
international style (when it comes to UI), and are moving "back" into Art
Nouveau or Jugendstil, digital with a analog touch (this will be huge with AR
I think, because it blends both worlds). AR is the medium where skeumorphism
will reinvent itself I think, it's natural and at home in that environment.

~~~
taneq
> AR is the medium where skeumorphism will reinvent itself I think, it's
> natural and at home in that environment.

Sure, but after that it will make way once again for more symbolic interfaces
with higher information density and more convenient interaction, just like
every other pendulum swing since the invention of the computer mouse. A new,
unfamiliar medium needs to borrow from established interfaces until it
develops its own conventions, and skeumorphism is probably the easiest
approach for this phase.

~~~
selestify
> A new, unfamiliar medium needs to borrow from established interfaces until
> it develops its own conventions, and skeumorphism is probably the easiest
> approach for this phase.

That's a really interesting point, and makes for a good general explanation of
design trends over time. Did you come up with it yourself?

~~~
srtjstjsj
That's the general concept of skeumorphism

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeuomorph](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeuomorph)

------
Animats
When the Panama Canal was nearing completion, there was talk of adding
decoration, and a group of artists and sculptors was sent to look at the
locks. They came back with a report. The entire project had been designed to
be purely functional with no attention to decoration. Adding any decoration
would be superfluous and would make it look worse. So, no stone lions or
fluted columns or brass eagles or obelisks. Just the huge masses of poured
concrete and steel, and the whitewashed control buildings with tan tile roofs.
They still look good after a century of operation.

~~~
ourmandave
I would have gone the other direction and tried to hide it like a power
substation behind trees or something landscapish.

I was going to mention the water pumping station that looks like a house but
the canal would need a really big house.

[https://sploid.gizmodo.com/this-normal-looking-house-is-
fake...](https://sploid.gizmodo.com/this-normal-looking-house-is-fake-and-
actually-hides-a-1505479080)

~~~
fyfy18
In Victorian England, utility buildings had rather elaborate designs. Abbey
Mills Pumping Station is one of the most elaborate, but a lot of 19th and
early 20th century utility buildings have a lot more style than those built
today.

[https://lookup.london/inside-abbey-mills-pumping-
station/](https://lookup.london/inside-abbey-mills-pumping-station/)

~~~
monort
Pumping station in Buenos Aires is pretty too -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_Company_Palace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_Company_Palace)

------
bloopernova
It's probably been discussed to death, and I apologize if you are rolling your
eyes at its mere mention: I really, really like the Solarized colour scheme.

It's now deeply ingrained into my "visual muscle memory" that a terminal
without Solarized just looks wrong to me. Even text editors look strange and
jarring without those familiar and soothing colours.

It's interesting that the colours in that Swiss Style Color Picker (linked
from the article) seem to be taken from a similar visual family of colours
(shades? hues? I am not literate in colour's language).

~~~
lorenzfx
I used solarized exclusively for several years in text editors and the
terminal. But after some years I couldn't stand looking at those blue-ish hues
all day. Nowadays I use gruvbox [1] the text editor (but still stick to
solarized in the terminal). Gruvbox really is a nice change with it's orange
and brown, warm colors, I cannot recommend it enough.

[1] [https://github.com/morhetz/gruvbox](https://github.com/morhetz/gruvbox)

~~~
bloopernova
Hey that is really good. I am going to give that a try in Atom and VSCode.

Thank you! May your code be forever clean, and your backups forever valid :)

~~~
arbie
If you get it working in VSCode, do share the config template!

------
iambateman
There is most certainly timeless user-interface design.

Look at a book from 500 years ago compared to a book today. While the
underlying tech is completely changed, the fundamental principles of book-user
interaction remain the same.

A lamp in the 1920’s had a screw bulb and a switch.

The piano has kept 88 keys and 3 pedals for centuries.

The asdf keyboard layout will never change.

When it comes to website design, we see some standardization happening across
the industry for what a website ought to be. I expect the homogenization will
continue as websites get measured for business results and find local optima
for solving the various problems.

~~~
wilsonnb2
You're just as likely to see a keyboard instrument with 25, 37, 49, 61, 73, or
76 keys as you are 88 these days. Pitch and mod wheels are also a staple of
certain kinds of keyboard instruments.

Aftertouch adds pressure sensors. The most advanced form of the keyboard
interface at the moment would probably be the ROLI seaboard [1].

I do expect that the 88 key piano will be a staple of music for a long, long
time, but I'm not sure I would call it's interface timeless seeing as it's
still being modified and adapted to this day.

[1] [https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SeaboardG-61--
roli-s...](https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SeaboardG-61--roli-
seaboard-grand-stage)

~~~
jacquesm
And yet, some random composer or musician from 100's of years ago (Say, one F.
Chopin or J.S. Bach) transported to today would have absolutely no problem
recognizing and using the instrument.

~~~
wilsonnb2
That's also true. The interface is in fact much older than the piano, having
first been used on harpsichords, clavichords, and (I think) pipe organs. If
I'm not mistaken, the black+white keyboard we use today was invented around
the 1400's. The piano itself dates back only to the 1700's.

I can see the argument for the keyboard being a timeless UI because it's
lasted mostly unchanged for about 600 years now.

I can also see the argument that 600 years isn't _that_ long in the scheme of
musical instruments. We've found ancient flutes from at least 30,000 years
ago. The lyre, popular in ancient Greece, is not that different from a modern
harp. Lutes are thought to have been present in Mesopotamia around 3000 BC.

Site note - I was surprised to learn that Bach lived before the piano became
popular and apparently did not endorse the instrument until a few years before
his death [1]. He would be familiar with the interface from earlier
instruments, though.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano#Early_fortepiano](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano#Early_fortepiano)

~~~
jacquesm
Bach composed for the Harpsichord as well as the pipe organ and was
instrumental (pun intended) in bringing about the modern day piano.

------
johnchristopher
Just a rambling note: that kind of light switch used in the article header is
the kind of timeless design I dislike. When the light bulb needs to be
replaced I can't tell anymore which position is on or off and if I am getting
a burn when screwing the replacement in. It's even worse when there are
multiple switches for the same light bulb :D.

Funny thing is that the same experience is conveyed through skeuomorphic
interfaces more often than not. /rambling_off

~~~
ronilan
It is very common to have multiple switches controlling the same light
(example: two switchs on both side of the bed controlling a single ceiling
light).

The position of an electrical switch is not designed to signal the status of
what it controls.

Source: I was an electrician apprentice in my teens.

Edit: wiki
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiway_switching](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiway_switching))

~~~
derefr
> The position of an electrical switch is not designed to signal the status of
> what it controls.

Wouldn’t the right affordance (at least for multiway switches) be a button,
then? Especially with an indicator LED in the that is lit by drawing from line
voltage, thus showing whether the completed system is on or off.

~~~
josefx
With that setup you need a central control that the buttons toggle on or off.
I imagine that would be more complex than just running a cable from one switch
to the next. Not exactly the most user friendly solution, however possibly the
cheapest.

~~~
derefr
Not really. I was imagining a toggle switch button—like the kind that goes in
and out to express its state, where the “in” state is literally bridging
contacts with the back of the button—but without the in/out state being
exposed externally, since it’s not accurate to the state of the system as a
whole. Instead, it would be a spring-loaded toggle where the spring is less
compressed when on and more compressed when off, to make the button face
remain at the same push-depth either way, while still having an in-out switch
behind it. Like the mechanical NumLock key on early keyboards.

So each switch-button _is_ still connected in series; all the LED indicator
faces on the switches are powered by line voltage of the circuit; and so, when
the circuit is completed, all the switches become lit; and when any switch is
toggled, the circuit is broken, and so no LED is then receiving power.

------
ThomPete
UI Design can be timeless in the sense that it becomes the adopted standard
for specific usage by a given culture and that this culture by default uses
the solution so much that everyone knows it's meaning.

It's however not because of some objective universal criteria but instead that
no other solution has been needed which made it worth changing that standard.

Intuition is learned within the confines of the culture that understand the
reference.

The desktop metaphor isn't timeless it's just one that society has invested
enough time that it becomes shared understanding

In that sense, it's not different than a language where no specific word or
sentence or meaning is objective in itself but rather points to something that
"everyone" understands.

~~~
blueboo
This gets at the crux of it, if you take "timeless" literally:

UI is culture. And what made culture is timeless? The undergraduate discussion
group might hit on Shakespeare, the Pyramids, the King James Bible, or Portal
II. In the end there's no common ground except that the value of culture
itself is context-sensitive.

Anyway, it's all a red herring because "timeless" in this article is misused;
the author just means "classic"

~~~
bloaf
An ancient Sumerian ledger:

[https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1250/0*7LNb7XKpR6vAdsBH....](https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/1250/0*7LNb7XKpR6vAdsBH.png)

A ledger from the 1700s:

[https://recordoffice.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/d2375m-277-...](https://recordoffice.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/d2375m-277-10_0002.jpg)

I think there are some UIs that almost perfectly fit the function; and they
are the candidates for timelessness.

~~~
tim333
The ancient Sumerian one looks a bit like Excel.

I think there are some limitation as to how you can lay stuff out and what the
human brain is happy with. It's not all culture.

Like with a lot of sites with flashy weird shit I use a reader view extension
to make it look like books and pages have looked for centuries. Not so much
because its the fashion but it's just clearer that way.

------
westoncb
> Remember the round cornered buttons? Yeah, I remember too. The only way it's
> okay for a designer to use them now is if it's #ironic. So keep it
> functional, not decorative. The round corners were never suiting any
> purpose.

But you have to choose _some_ shape for them to be; why is square the
default/baseline, and round the modification (the one with 'something added')?
You could equally well say to, "just use round corners, keep it functional,
not decorative—we austere users of the internet don't require any flashy
straight-edged ornamentation."

I'm sure someone can give me an argument about how the straight edges make it
easier for the eyes to associate aligned items or something like that, but if
you're just slightly rounding some rectangles, not using ovals or something,
the difference will be negligible.

The problem isn't introducing aesthetic qualities for their own sake—it's only
a problem when you _exchange_ something with a concrete purpose because you
give higher value to the purely aesthetic thing.

(The quote uses the term 'decorate,' which ordinarily I think is a good
choice, since in the case of decorations, you're _adding_ content, which can
lead to useless clutter—but! my opening argument here is basically that
choosing round over square is _not_ decorative in that sense.)

So, I'm left with the feeling that the quote really just comes down to
justifying the newer bandwagon.

~~~
TylerE
Because squares are much easier to draw than circles.

~~~
flukus
There's the old story about Steve Jobs and Bill Atkinson where jobs points out
rounded corners everywhere:
[http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_E...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt)

It do wonder how much CPU power, electricity and carbon emissions have gone
into rounded corners over the years, only to have square rectangles came back
into fashion.

------
arikr
My contribution: the Lindy effect applies to design.

The longer something has been considered good design, the longer it is likely
to remain good design.

If a design has been good for 100 years, it'll probably be good for another
100 years.

If a design has only been good for a year or two, you should expect that it'll
have a much shorter lifespan.

~~~
tlrobinson
Out of curiosity, what are some examples of "100 year" designs?

Bicycles come to mind.

~~~
spreiti
Watches

------
ainar-g
Some examples of what I consider timeless (and good) UI on the internet:

* Hacker News (duh)

* c2 wiki

* Wikipedia (it changes, but thankfully not radically)

I would have added Reddit, but alas. Seeing how they plan to change to that...
other thing makes me really sad.

Anything else?

~~~
jdietrich
Hacker News is a miserable experience on mobile. Even on desktop, the
upvote/downvote buttons are needlessly small and give no confirmation; I often
find myself clicking "unvote" because I wasn't sure if I upvoted or downvoted.

~~~
Pulcinella
Don’t forget how Code snippets require lots of horizontal scrolling on mobile.
It’s bad but understandable when it’s actual code, but it’s just aweful when
someone is using code formatting to represent a quote.

~~~
marcosdumay
> It’s bad but understandable when it’s actual code

My 80 column terminal does not need horizontal scrolling on wide code. Why
does my browser need it?

------
huhtenberg
Regardless of the TIMELESSNESS of UI design matters having THIRTY percent of
TEXT emphasized is REALLY quite annoying.

~~~
tyrust

      Also, styling your own thoughts as quotes makes them more convincing and tweetable!

------
Kagerjay
I find math-based designs to be really appealing for a timeless logo design

A good example of this is twitters design

[https://designshack.net/articles/graphics/twitters-new-
logo-...](https://designshack.net/articles/graphics/twitters-new-logo-the-
geometry-and-evolution-of-our-favorite-bird/)

------
dwaltrip
The answer given by the article:

> There's no such thing as timeless design, because it's too dependent on its
> context, but one can shoot for longevity.

E.g. Obviously, there is no such thing perfectly timeless, as the only
universal constant is that things change over time. But one can minimize
dependence on current context, and attempt to tap into the slower changing,
more fundamental aspects of today's world. In this respect, the artist shares
some similarity with the scientist.

------
godzillabrennus
To me timeless UI was achieved with Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) and has been eroded
with time.

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/fi/7/75/Mac_OS_X_10.4...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/fi/7/75/Mac_OS_X_10.4_Tiger.png)

~~~
matchbok
Brushed metal? No thanks.

------
devxpy
This really needs to be a thing with OS ui.

Changing UI in gnome world, and linux world in general is a real problem. Why
can't stuff just stay where I rememeber it is!

Mac OS does quite well in this area, at least compared to windows and linux.
It still maintains familiar menus, while the look and feel still looks modern.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Although applications changing is still a problem, I quite strongly disagree
that Linux desktops are always changing. Unlike NT and Darwin, Linux lets you
run whatever desktop environment you want, including all the old ones. I have
a co-worker who has been using some offshoot of twm (I forget which) for
literally decades with almost no changes.

~~~
devxpy
I agree, but the old DEs feel old to use, because well, they're old. Mac still
feels modern.

------
krsdcbl
The web & almost any gui lacks one important characteristics for timelessness
- simply: time.

What we consider timeless in other desogn disciplines are patterns that
emerged throughout many centuries of cultural transformation.

Digital UI is not only much much younger, it also enables sheer endless
variation of any functional pattern, arbitrary design.

I would argue much of the UX patterns we established so far, be it the button
or a slideshow, windows & menus, all these UI conventions are barebone
concepts that already are timeless - and when it comes to styling, looks, it's
very well possible to design in a way that is already timeless, it's just
paint. And some of today's design schools will become timeless in time

------
6ue7nNMEEbHcM
Please if you ever succeed in any timeless design, please don't make it like
the linked article.

It's horrible, it takes like 1/4th of the screen horizontally, with majority
of the space taken by the blank spots.

I don't know why people nowadays make everything look awful so it looks "the
same" on all devices.

Please don't do that. It makes it more difficult to estimate the length of the
text, it's irritating since you need to scroll constantly and it looks bad.

~~~
culot
The link posted above is an AMP link. Maybe try removing the AMP? It looks
like it uses about 2/3 of the browser width that way, much better.

Also, about blank spots: do you mean in between the sections of text? Maybe is
an issue with the [goddamn] lazy-load graphics?

~~~
6ue7nNMEEbHcM
I mean the page layout. A single very narrow column and a lots of unused space
all around it. I have full sized screen, I shouldn't be constrained as if I
was on mobile.

EDIT: you are right, it's the AMP version which makes it like that, without
/amp it looks like normal web page.

------
gdubs
It comes down to designing according to a set of principles, rather than fads.
Then, you use the best available tools to align as tightly to those principles
as possible.

It doesn't have to be boring either. A principle of Wired in the early 90s was
to be outrageous and loud. Clashing colors and unreadable type completely
aligned with their principles - and it was great.

When new technology comes around, you evolve if it allows you to get closer to
your principles.

Look at fashion – as full of fads as anything. Yet there are timeless items:
well constructed denim; simple and unadorned. A basic, nicely cut tee-shirt. A
simple black dress. Oxfords, Vans. Why are they timeless? Because they align
with principles that are unchanging: Simple, honest, functional, versatile,
easy to maintain.

And if your fashion principle is to stand out, then yea, each individual item
of clothing will not be timeless. But the principle will be.

Same applies to design in any medium.

------
billysielu
So apply these designs to the principles from the brutalist post the other day
and you have a site that looks good and is easy to use.

------
kgin
> Remember the round cornered buttons? Yeah, I remember too. The only way it's
> okay for a designer to use them now is if it's #ironic.

What am I missing here? The latest guidelines for Material Design and iOS have
round corner buttons.

------
stevenwoo
This feels like a subset of The Design of Everyday Things with some specific
additions for corporate logos, it's unclear to me if the author has read the
book or is unfamiliar with it and unintentionally references the first chapter
in the conclusion.

------
randop
Have not yet seen a full UI that have not undergone change. But, there are UI
elements that have stand the test of time.

The best example I can think of is Letters and Numbers. We have been using
them for a long time to communicate and interact with each other.

------
catchmeifyoucan
I like rounded corners.

Arguably they serve a purpose; easier on the eyes when you have groups of
elements.

------
moretai
I am a programmer, and I think I'd like to pivot into design/graphic
design/ux/etc. I just want to make pretty stuff. I want to make cool looking
stuff. Is there any advice some of you can impart?

~~~
Izkata
Don't forget colorblindness. That's an easy one to accidentally end up where
they can't distinguish parts of the page from each other.

One of the other devs at work has regularly pointed out issues with our prior
designers' work, when he couldn't tell what was what.

------
oliv__
Is hipster UI design a thing?

~~~
tfranco
Is it?

~~~
beamatronic
Ever used Snapchat?

~~~
tfranco
Good point.

------
parallel_item
A clock face is a timeless UI

------
wpdev_63
No - every UI becomes stale after years of use. Just ask apple.

------
sahillavingia
> The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that it's all learned.

~~~
dsr_
This turns out to be wildly inaccurate: my mother's profession -- lactation
consultant -- wouldn't exist if humans had an intuition about this.

(80% of her work is in getting positioning right; this is the sort of thing
that new mothers used to learn by having lots of public and family examples to
follow.)

~~~
wool_gather
That's about the interface not knowing how to, so to speak, "configure
itself"˚; it's not about the user -- the baby -- failing to use the interface.

˚With apologies for the literal objectification.

~~~
dragonwriter
Objectification aside, that seems wrong; while there is obviously instinctive
behavior involved (on both sides), both sides also need learned behavior for
it to work well; the instinctive component is enough to get to the point where
learning has a high enough success rate in the wood that humanity didn't die
out from all out idiotic starving to death, but it's not the whole story.

