
Implausible Hypothetical Eastern European App - elischiff
http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/12/9/implausible-hypothetical-eastern-european-app
======
jalfresi
I must say, this blog pops up on HN every couple of months and after
subscribing for the first few articles I'm STILL not sure as to main crux of
his argument.

I understand that he hates the "flat" design trend. I know he loathes the
"Californian minimalist". But I still can't quite grasp exactly what it is he
DOES like.

His blog posts include lots of images comparing iOS icons to pre iOS7
versions, mostly comparing images without gradients with those that have
gradients.

Can anyone actually explain his point? As far as I can make out he seems to be
arguing that users would benefit more from design that "pretends-to-be-like-
another-thing" rather than "represent-that-thing-as-it-is"; y'know, the
opposite of honesty in materials. For the life of me I can't make out if he
has a point, or it's just the lamentations of someone who got really good at
drawing skeuomorphic* icons and is now buggered because the fashion is now for
flat monochrome icons.

* I loathe to use the word like this as I don't believe that many cases that type of design or interface is strictly skeuomorphic, more misplaced metaphor. e.g. stitching on a fake leather notepad=skeuomorphic, detailed drawing of a hard disk drive to represent a hard disk=metaphor

~~~
vanderZwan
> _design that "pretends-to-be-like-another-thing" rather than "represent-
> that-thing-as-it-is"_

Great, let's use the screen to do nothing but show that it is a bunch of
pixels! Oh wait, _that would render it completely useless_.

No thank you, I'd rather stick to using conceptual metaphors[0] before letting
UX design fall for the same mistakes made by contemporary arts, where
everything has to be an abstract self-reference to that you are watching an
artwork.

[0]
[http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Conceptual_metaphor](http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Conceptual_metaphor)

~~~
jalfresi
"Great, let's use the screen to do nothing but show that it is a bunch of
pixels"

But it does that.

I'm not sure you follow my point - I would rather things on my screen did not
waste those pixels pretending to be something they are not, in order to
convince me that I can kind-of using it like that thing.

Here is an example:

Many web designers disguise hyperlinks on their page. They change the colour,
remove the underline, add a 3d border to make it look like a button. Some go
even further; some use a form button and add a click handler which fires of a
page change when clicked.

My point is that a hyperlink is what it is. Why deliberately shatter the
intrinsic understanding of how the web page works by purposefully destroying
all that knowledge and then forcing the user to construct new understanding?
Why can't a hyperlink be blue underlined text?

The answer to this question is usually "because it does not fit with the style
or aesthetic of the page". And there-in lies the problem; the purpose of the
page is not aesthetics.

~~~
vanderZwan
> But it does that.

No, it does not. It uses these pixels to _(re)present_ something else. You
don't put down a slab of marble and say "this is a sculpture about marble"
either.

I understand and agree with your viewpoint on hyperlinks, but I'm talking
about the other extreme end, which is what a lot of shitty flat design ends up
as.

------
Zarkonnen
This looked interesting but I feel like I am missing several levels of context
here. What's the other kind of design that isn't like those eastern european
apps? What's dribbbbblization?

~~~
elischiff
This series should be a good primer:
[http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/4/7/fall-of-the-
designer-...](http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2015/4/7/fall-of-the-designer-
part-i-fashionable-nonsense)

------
shadeless
I find the premise of this very strange. Is there any proof that the kind of
design described really came from Eastern Europe? Or that the most of the
authors are from there? From my (brief) visits to dribbble it seemed like that
kind of work was popular all around the world.

This just sounds like "Us vs. Them" to me.

~~~
Neputys
Hard to say if it was intended or not. But observe how this shifts the
discussion towards some sort of "outsiders". Nobody here is to blame and the
life is beautiful again.

------
riffraff
> after Dribbble goes the way of DeviantArt and similar dead communities.

since when is DA dead?

