

From the World of Design Trends: “Flat Design” Is Dying - user_235711
http://factionmedia.com/from-the-world-of-design-trends-flat-design-is-dying/

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mrlase
This was a pointlessly fluffy article that can be summed up with: "Flat design
is a fad. Just like modern and postmodern movements have come and gone in art
— so will this."

Well, of course movements change, so you could write an article as soon as a
trend starts that its "dying."

More importantly, human-computer interactions is a relatively new area of
design. How do we know that flat design will actually be just a fad rather
than a paradigm shift?

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robotpony
You're right, it's an unsubstantiated opinion. I haven't seen grand examples
of design swinging back toward skeuomorphism, though some of the more extreme
minimalistic choices have been changing.

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Someone1234
Good riddance.

While flat design was definitely done "right" by some (e.g. Windows Phone) it
was done very wrong indeed by others (iOS 7, Google Maps, Windows 8, et al).
So wrong in fact that I'd go as far as to call it a usability anti-pattern.

There's a reason why shadows and borders exist: To distinguish items from one
another on a 2D display. Without those clues it is hard to distinguish a text
label from a clickable button.

Perfect example:

[https://i.imgur.com/Auyj1Xs.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Auyj1Xs.jpg)

So if you had never used Windows 8 before, you might not know that "Change PC
Settings" is a button instead of the title of the section, and in my
experience that is typical for most users.

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tpeo
I think the graphic design aspect of contemporary UIs isn't as big of a
problem as their overall design philosophy. Developers seem to have conflated
"minimalism" with "slashing features and hoping no one notices", while
suddenly hiding stuff behind clunky menus is hip.

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swartkrans
Flat isn't dying, although maybe the most extreme version of it may be falling
out of favor. Thick glassy, 3d icons with heavy drop shadows, skeuomorphism,
and gradient bevels, protruding interface elements and the like are still as
garish now as they were a year ago. The trend toward more subtle depth if any
depth at all and only when needed is still very much a thing.

Much of the new popular UI designs is still pretty flat too:
[https://dribbble.com/](https://dribbble.com/)

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rubinelli
Site currently down. Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Xff7vYO...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Xff7vYOERuoJ:factionmedia.com/from-
the-world-of-design-trends-flat-design-is-dying/&client=ubuntu&hl=en-
US&gl=us&strip=1)

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runn1ng
And I _just_ redesigned my websites from gradients to flat. What will they
think of next?

