

The Trend Against Skeuomorphic Textures and Effects in User Interface Design - cremnob
http://daringfireball.net/2013/01/the_trend_against_skeuomorphism

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thomholwerda
The article makes some great points, but is entirely undermined by Gruber
stating that "iOS - and the iPhone in particular - is its leading edge", with
"its" referring to flat design. At the same time, he reduces Windows
Phone/Metro to a footnote, and can't even stomach mentioning Google's Holo
design.

That is nothing short of insane. Just because a few applications on iOS use a
flat(ter) design, iOS is the leading edge of flat design? That makes no sense,
when there's Windows Phone and Windows 8, two high-profile products from one
of the largest technology companies in the world which have adopted this
design style to its very extremes.

Heck, even Google has adopted this flat design to a great degree with Holo
and, by lack of a better name, the "Google Now"-theme.

Yes, there is a trend towards this flat design, but if you're looking for its
leading edge, iOS, and Apple as a whole, is about as far removed from said
edge as possible.

I'm not sure if Gruber is intentionally dishonest, or if he actually believes
what he's writing here. I'm not sure which is worse.

~~~
Steko
"entirely undermined ... nothing short of insane."

No it's not remotely 'insane', it's just mildly ignorant. As for 'entirely
undermined', clearly the important takeaway from the article has nothing to do
with which platform is at the leading edge.

And if you follow the thesis that "retina" quality displays are what's
encouraging flat ui design. it's hard to get away from the fact that Apple has
been leading the way on that front.

~~~
Adaptive
No, it is insane. Gruber positions himself as a voice of Apple/Design
authority and is in a position to do so. For him to make the claims he does
and title this article as it is, and then ignore the actual design trends is
ridiculous. Another reason why he comes across as more Apple shill than
journalist, which is a shame.

~~~
Steko
You clearly don't know what 'insane' means and I wonder if we even read the
same article.

Gruber has been a very vocal critics of Apple's hard on for skeuomorphism for
a long time. When he says the "timing of this trend, and the fact that iOS —
and the iPhone in particular — is its leading edge, is not coincidental" he is
most certainly not talking about the OS itself. This should be obvious because
in the very next paragraph he says that "the whole default iOS look" is made
up of "phony effects". But I guess if you're just here to get your HN rubber
stamp upvotes by calling Gruber a one dimensional Apple shill you might have
missed that.

~~~
camus
yep he should have used the word dishonest or flat out lying...

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hcarvalhoalves
Gruber managed to spin the whole idea of skeumorphisms being rejected as a
praise for retina display and the bright future it will lead us to. WTF!?

Skeumorphism has nothing to do with pixel density at all. It's being used
since the inception of UIs for affordance, reusing knowledge from the physical
world and increasing usability.

If there's a trend toward a _flat_ design, it's because we're past the mimicry
phase, current users were already born in the digital age and don't have a
problem understanding new paradigms and touch screens. Now we can focus on UIs
that put content forefront (back to print design) and interact in different
ways.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance>

~~~
MBCook
I don't think he's talking about _real_ skeuomorphism, but the common practice
of referring to anything that that looks like a real world object as
skeuomorphic, even when it actively hurts user interaction.

iCal has become a classic example. It's been covered with faux leather to make
it look "better", even though in the Lion version was actually harder to use
than the "digital" Snow Leopard version.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
A skeuomorph is a physical ornament or design on an object copied from a form
of the object when made from another material or by other techniques. [1]

In the case of iCal, it _is_ skeuomorphic, just poorly executed. It mimics the
appearance of the object, just don't interact like the real one. In this
particular case, we can argue it's bad design, because it's not honest: it
deceives the user and breaks the mental model.

I suppose Apple's heavy use of skeumorphisms is less for usability, and more a
result of a culture of design inside the company. They often use it to pay
hommage to iconic product designs, like Braun products, the Rolodex, Swiss
clocks, etc.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeuomorph>

~~~
lloeki
Gruber makes a specific reference of Brushed Metal as what he refers as phony
"skeuomorphism".

BTW Braun design, esp. Rams's are the closest to "flat" in a 3d world [0].

[0]: <https://www.vitsoe.com/gb/about/good-design>

~~~
gurkendoktor
Kind of OT, but am I the only one for whom Brushed Metal _was_ an affordance?
A brushed metal frame meant "I have a super large drag area, drag me from any
edge you want to". Apps like iSync could be dragged basically from any pixel
that was not on a button.

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gfodor
This makes no sense. The purpose of skeuomorphism isn't to make up for shitty
displays, it's to provide a solid metaphor for the user by making objects on
screen appear as if they were real, manufactured things they are familiar
with. It's to provide additional affordances that would otherwise be
impossible without making such a metaphor. It's to put the users mind at ease,
if only artificially, by making them feel less like they are using a computer
and more like they are using a physical thing. If anything, retina displays
_improve_ the ability of skeuomorphism to do these things, since textures can
be rendered more realistically and the user is less likely to be distracted by
aliasing artifacts, pixelation, etc.

~~~
wmf
That may have been the original purpose, but I doubt that has anything to do
with the iPhone. How many iPhone owners are familiar with leather desk
calendars and reel-to-reel tape decks? It seems more likely that Apple just
wanted to make these apps look cool.

~~~
gfodor
Skeumorphism is a continuum. On the one end, you have the "tape deck." On the
other end, you have subtle shadows, bevels, indentations, and so on.

Sorry, but I think turning everything into solid colored rectangles is
throwing the baby out with the bath water, and largely misses the point. When
you design an app you have to choose for different pieces where on the
continuum they should lie. The only way to know where the limit is is to try
it, and Apple obviously in certain cases found the limit. Just like with the
brushed metal stuff they pushed up to the edge to discover where it was. This
reactionary type of design of having no gradients, no textures, no shadows,
etc, is less about understanding what makes good design for users and more
about blind differentiation.

~~~
snogglethorpe
A-men.

Personally I _like_ "skeumorphism" in many cases. Why? 'cause in those cases
they made it pretty, and I like pretty.... :]

Usability is of course a baseline requirement, but there are many things you
can do on top of that, of which the "make it look like leather!" is one. As
long as you're mindful of the baseline, it's all a matter of taste (and taste
is fickle).

Unfortunately the anti-skeumorphism fad seems in many case to be even more
shallow than the skeumorphism fad, obsessing over the look and ignoring basic
usability...

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HeyImAlex
>What occurs to me is that the timing of this trend, and the fact that iOS —
and the iPhone in particular — is its leading edge, is not coincidental. It’s
because of retina displays.

This is a joke, right? He's actually giving Apple and the Retina® display
credit for this design trend? Letterpress came out in October for christ's
sake; the "leading edge" of iOS _apps_ is months behind what Microsoft has
already made a core part of their operating systems.

~~~
DannyBee
History is written by the winners.

At one point, this is how the Be and Apple fans felt listening to Windows
folks blather on, now the Windows and Android folks get to listen to the Apple
folks blather on, and so on and so forth.

Such is the circle of tech life.

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fjorder
Others have said it, and they're right. Skeuomorphism has become dated and
Apple is now playing catch-up with Android and Windows. Apple has been playing
catch-up with Android in terms of features for quite some time now, so this is
not new.

This is, however, so new to Gruber that he is apparently still in denial.
While it's far too early to say, one has to wonder if Apple is headed for a
period of uninspired decline, similar to what they experienced in the 90's.
Could Gruber end up like the mac-zealots of the 90's who proclaimed the
superiority of OS9 when, in fact, it was inferior in every way to its
competitors?

~~~
cma
Gruber knows Ive took over UI; this post is just a preemptive "I told you so"
that no one asked for to be carted out after the next iOS release.

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ChrisLTD
"The whole default iOS look — the textures, the shadows, the subtle (and
sometimes unsubtle) 3D effects — is optimized for non-retina displays. It’s
makeup to cover up the fact that 163 pixels per inch, which though better than
anything we had before the original iPhone, is still a crude resolution
overall. Retina displays are no longer limited in such ways, and need no phony
effects to create interfaces that are beautiful."

One problem with his analysis: Apple's skeuomorphic applications look bad on
both high and low DPI displays.

~~~
ricardobeat
He does acknowledge that; emphasis on _phony_. Further down:

> On retina displays, as with high quality print output, these techniques are
> revealed for what they truly are: an assortment of parlor tricks that fool
> our eyes [...]

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ricardobeat
This is interesting: Gruber is attaching the bleeding-edge of web & mobile
design to the coming of Retina displays, while it was actually championed by
Microsoft's Windows 8. A nice plot twist. Nonetheless, it's very true - with
enough resolution all these gimmicks come through as just what they are -
gimmicks. Shadows, embossing and heavy textures are tell-tale signs of _bad_
graphic design in printed media.

~~~
brudgers
It started with Windows Phone 7. Not that I think Gruber is likely to admit
it.

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eignerchris_
Gruber lives in a distortion field where Apple is the driver for everything.

Did they reset the bar on smart phones? Absolutely. But Google, Microsoft,
Kiipt, Skype, Rdio, Spotify, Flipboard, Harvest, and Facebook (just to name a
few) are all flat (some of them since inception) because of the Retina
display? Of course not.

Designers are running from skeuomorphic designs because they are becoming
tired and cliche. THAT was caused by Apple.

------
Adaptive
Over a decade ago I redesigned the website / web UI of a major global bank.
Pure flat, pure css, very forward thinking if I say so myself. After months of
work, and weeks final revisions and testing, days before going live, the
client came back and asked for one final change: "Can the main navigation be
glossy buttons like Apple's?"

It's _not_ fashion. It's just that bad taste is finally being sidelined by
better graphic design literacy among general users. We drank cheap wine for
years, but now we have a more refined palette. That's not going away.

(Back then? I fought that fight and lost. Today? Same design, flat elements in
its place.)

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statictype
It's funny because after I heard everyone rave about the UI in Letterpress and
I then I tried it, my first thought was "When will everyone address the
elephant in the room, which is that this good UI design is essentially metro-
style UI"

Apparently it has been reduced to a footnote in an article.

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fusiongyro
If the null hypothesis is just that fashion is fashion and fads are fads, I'd
like to see more evidence than "I think Letterpress looks fantastic on Retina
displays."

And what an insufferable introduction.

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pwpwp
iOS as the leading edge of the flat design aesthetic? facepalm.

~~~
ChrisLTD
He actually says Letterpress is on the leading edge of this trend. From
Gruber:

"Wiskus rightly cites Loren Brichter’s Letterpress for being at the leading
edge of this trend."

It may be true that Letterpress is setting an example for iOS apps, but it's
hardly true of software interfaces in general. Windows Phone metro UI has been
around a lot longer than Letterpress.

~~~
pwpwp
"What occurs to me is that the timing of this trend, and the fact that iOS —
and the iPhone in particular — is its leading edge, is not coincidental."

~~~
gurkendoktor
And a few lines below he says that the default look of iOS does it wrong (in
the context of the article). He can only be referring to third party apps.

------
Mazer23
Using print as an example of good high resolution design is interesting, but
it misses one of the main reasons we have drop shadows and fake textures in
non-print design.

Drop shadows and textures provide affordances and a visual language to
communicate what a user can and should interact with on screen. They provide a
visual hierarchy to the user so they can easily see what is content and what
is interactive, etc.

Print has no interaction, so it's a bit naive to say we're going back to print
aesthetics. We need a new way forward that provides both. Web apps have been
experimenting with this for a while now. Some of these ideas work, some don't,
but we can't just pretend print design has all the answers.

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duaneb
Umm, AFAIK the iPhone/iOS is the leader in Skeuomorphic design. That damn
podcast app is the worst offender, and in fact, the trend he is describing is
exactly what Metro is.

Gruber hasn't been this far off in a long time.

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eCa
> It’s because of retina displays.

Or maybe they like Metro in Cupertino...

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wmf
Maybe you have to see it to understand, because I don’t understand this
argument at all. What is it about a flat rectangle that benefits from retina?
If anything, I would think textures would benefit from retina.

~~~
ttuominen
Trying to make the best out of the argument, I think you could put it this
way: discrete, identifiable vector-like shapes with sharp edges (not only
straight rectangles but also rotated ones and other shapes - he also
emphasizes typefaces) _do_ require a sufficient pixel density to look good.
Skeumorphic photo-like bitmaps fool the eye by hiding the low pixel density
using low contrasts between pixels (with natural looking gradients and anti-
aliasing). I'm reminded of this when I look at classic 2D video game graphics
from the nineties, they make this style really apparent. If it was only about
flat rectangles, I'd agree. But I also think this seems to have really started
with mobile Windows and the flat single-color rectangles.

~~~
cma
But mobile windows never used any rectangles that weren't aligned to the pixel
grid... They didn't have rotated ones.

~~~
ttuominen
You're right, and I have to clarify that I don't necessarily agree with the
idea that new display technology is the real _cause_ of this new trend. But I
do think we will be able to get better results from simpler, minimalistic
designs with better resolutions.

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twelvechairs
Good article - for me though 'trend' implies fashion, where this is actually
quite practical. Interfaces used to be new and different in every program -
hence the need to comfort users with skeuomorphs to make sure they know what
something does. Nowdays the ubiquity of the iphone/android and windows-derived
interfaces mean that you don't have to provide so much suggestion - users just
'know what to do' when confronted with something that would have been
difficult to understand for the average user 10 years ago.

~~~
snogglethorpe
There are certainly practical issues, and hopefully those will in the end
dominate, but don't for a minute think this isn't about fashion. Skeumorphism
was about fashion, and anti-skeumorphism is about fashion.

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mikec3k
Drop shadows serve as a cue that something is clickable. With a flat UI you
need to look for what to click on because it doesn't stand out instantly.

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neumann_alfred
I don't know about things like radio buttons that look like physical switches,
that's often going to far for my taste (unless it's for atmosphere in a game),
but when it comes to the bevels etc around which much of this discussion seems
to actually revolve, perception of that pseudo-depth seems to be simply
another dimension with which to differentiate, just like color, font, size
etc. Those are subject to fashion, too, but that doesn't make them entirely
100% useless or 100% useful all the time, if you know what I mean.

But I'm probably just rationalizing, I haven't grown old of that basic "light
from top left" pseudo 3D since Amiga Workbench 2.0, and I won't tire of subtle
gradients, ever. I think I'm fine with my "design" seeming old-fashioned or
even primitive as opposed to being hip; I genuinely like bevels and gradients,
I'd use them if nobody else did, and now I can finally prove that haha (though
when everybody used them, there was _so_ much to learn from, so I'm glad that
happened ^^).

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ilaksh
Retina is a brand name and mainly is just a higher resolution. You are never
going to see a 'Retina' display on a Windows or Linux machine. Because you are
using an Apple marketing term.

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sgdesign
To clarify his point about high resolution displays: they do make one very
important design element look better, and that's typography.

Whereas on a low-resolution display a flat, typography-based design might look
empty and bland, on a hi-dpi screen it can look gorgeous.

Of course, textures _also_ look better on a hi-dpi screen. But the point still
remains that Metro-style design has now become an option on iOS thanks to
retina displays.

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wavesum
I'm sick of that buzzword. Skeuo this skeuo that. The correct word for the
design style is "realistic"

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modarts
I don't understand his point regarding higher resolution displays as enablers
of "flatter" design. Wouldn't textured, skeumorphic designs benefit as well?

