This is a very flat UI. I ran usability tests in the past with enterprise software that followed Windows inspired flat design. Guess what the users could not manage? The flat design, as it destroys easy discoverability of what can be clicked on and what can not. This weighed as heavy on the usability of the software as other UI mistakes and usually compounded them - as in, a difficult screen, difficult because it had a wrong interaction flow, got completely unusable for users because a button did not look like a button.
Flat design got so thoroughly critized in the last decade, that people still jump on that bandwagon now that it's on its way out is astonishing. Leave it to Gnome to proudly announce flat design - worse-than-metro flat design, flat design without colors and backgrounds - for 2022. Unbelievable.
I long ago realized that I was far, far away from GNOME's target audience. If I have to install a half dozen plugins just to get things to behave the way I expect them to, then the answer is a resounding NO. These days, I gravitate to XFCE for virtual machines, low-power systems, and remote desktops, and Cinnamon for full-fat machines with a GPU.
Why am I not surprised that GNOME would adopt flat design? I know it's trendy, but any time I have to use a recent Windows flat-design application (hello Visual Studio!) I find it annoying - it becomes a lot harder to determine whether something is a modal popup or an independent window.
It's flat design in the title bar where everything in there (except sometimes the title) tends to be interactive.
Making the window header bars feel less heavy is important.
But tbh. the problem was placing all kind of stuff into the title bars. Works well for a few handpicked examples but in general it works just so-so and in context of cross platform it falls apart...
So IMHO they should instead of trying to use the space in the header bars of windows they should have tried to see if they can eliminate header bars instead.
> It's flat design in the title bar where everything in there (except sometimes the title) tends to be interactive.
Hm, anecdata: I run a very simple window manager called IceWM. It has a flat IconButton at the left of the title bar, giving it an alternative way to access the window menu. It took years before I understood that you can click on hat. At least a decade I'm pretty sure.
> But tbh. the problem was placing all kind of stuff into the title bars. Works well for a few handpicked examples but in general it works just so-so and in context of cross platform it falls apart...
I completely agree. The examples they show are mostly awful, and even though with the current design (the less flattened) it's clearer what's clickable, it does not look great. So I think I understand where they are coming from with this change aesthetically, but like you said, the core problem is misusing the title bar space.
Flat design is basically a form of elitism. In order to understand how and why the computer works, you must subscribe to a cathedral of thought that exists at this stage more or less to protect itself and celebrate its own brilliance, because any real invention in the UI space had already basically topped out by the late 90s.
From this perspective, we have flat UI for essentially the same reason we're starting to see the formation of tech unions. It has been a long time since a lot of our industry has done anything new or even productive, and much of what we do is entirely self-serving, creating a kind of fragility that ultimately threatens the workforce. Endless UI churn producing worse and worse designs isn't a problem, it's a symptom that is impossible to ignore.
While I'm mostly there with you, I feel like it's a bit too strong to call it elitism. It does assume the user has background knowledge and quickness to recognize the difference between an icon, label, and clickable button and some part of these decisions come from some insularity amongst ux designers may be, so it might stem from some out-of-touch-ness but it's probably more unintentional than being elitist.
User Interface expertise was lost way back 20 years ago. There has been a constant onslought by aestheticians and minimalists on the very definition of Design. Design used to be less creative and more objective. It was about addressing the requirements of a product, how best it can serve the user and empathizing with the operator. Now, it means how best to market to the user, brainwash them with glitter of aesthetics, numb them with animations, and tell them to open up the wallet. Make that sale, functionalism be damned.
So here we are. Witnessing complete destruction of the field of Design by commercial optimization and shareholder maximization syndrome. Thrift baby thrift.
Try https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1372444 the good old Mist from gtk2 resurrected for modern gtk3, and qt4/5 apps take the gtk-style. Problem solved. (For now)
I don’t necessarily agree with the post you’re responding to, but the intent seems to be to criticize the lack of visual distinctness between elements, not the lack of pseudo-3D-style rendering.
And even things like System6 weren't that _flat_. There were subtleties on their UI that gave a little depth to some stuff. But one could argue the _flat_ in their UI was some sort of answer to the limitations of their time.
I'll be honest and say I don't like this trend in UX. The article is right that they are merely following others, so I won't lay this on them as their fault, but it feels like making icons buttons look less like buttons is reversing a trend a lot of people are used to, as well as reducing contrast for older users and disabled folks. I think the most recent change that stuck in my mind was recent firefox's redesign.
I recall the GNOME team priding themselves on actually starting the original gnome 3 redesign based on studying usage patterns, and against the angry grain I was on their side and used gnome 3 for quite a few years. I have to wonder whether this design was passed by any accessibility folks or even studied, it seems like it is against that spirit of actually evaluating usage patterns.
Fair. When I said "it's not their fault" I meant more along the lines as they didn't come up with this ill-advised idea themselves, that others came up with it. They shouldn't have jumped aboard without considering accessibility and usable issues and for that may be they deserve criticism.
I like GNOME, I just don't see the point of updating interface. Interface is something people depend on. Shouldn't we want it to be the same for a long time? Unless this change is the result of years of research and experiences with users. But with "This is not a new idea either — pretty much everyone else is doing it, e.g. macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, elementary OS, KDE.", this just seems to be following the trends.
I've always assumed it's because it's easier to do and piques public interest more, at least in the short-term, than updating, improving, or fixing the deeper plumbing problems and shortcomings.
Another copycat change to get the same crappy non-ergonomics in unrecognizable controls as the others. Can we please fast-forward all the UI circus to arrive at something usable again? Pretty please?
I've heard this complaint a couple of times recently. I find it odd because I'm using the latest Firefox and the contrast is pretty good. I wonder if we are using different themes?
I am using Adwaita, the stock Gnome 40 theme. Note: inactive windows. You are showing an active window on the screenshot below. On inactive windows, the unfocused tab background color is #f6f5f4. The focused tab background color is #f7f6f6. Call me colorblind, but I simply cannot distinguish between these two shades.
On Windows 10 it is actually worse, since Proton it is ignoring my bright-blue accent color, so by default both the color of active and inactive windows is the same gray.
The screenshot below is an inactive window. I've just double checked to be sure and yep that's exactly what it looks like when I switch to a different window. It is on a Mac though so sounds like the the behaviour is different on other systems such as your Windows 10 example. I'll have to have a look when I have the time.
Many stiles have a clear contrast between "active" and "in-active", but some don't have.
E.g. some of the styles used during the early testing for the default non-light/non-dark theme had close to non differentiable, and it seems some people are still hit by this.
Just tried the default theme and the active tab is white with a dark grey border, while inactive tabs have no border and are the same colour as the chrome background. Even when the Firefox window is inactive the active tab still appears white with the dark grey border. It seems to me that there is sufficient contrast. Does your Firefox look anything like this image on your device? https://imgur.com/a/C2JvVRh
So, I'm not talking about the tabs, I said "buttons." The buttons are just icons and have no outline (for example, the close button, the back button, etc)
Also, sorry I made a mistake, I had to edit and add a "no" to it to properly say what I meant in that the buttons have no hint as to that they are actually buttons.
I'd like to chime in before the GNOME hate train starts.
I welcome this change. I've been using GNOME for tens of years now for both my personal and my office systems. I very much enjoy the experience. Keep up the good work!
Also a GNOME user here, regularly switching to macOS/Windows for work so I do get to compare how GNOME is going with 'mainstream' desktops. Really impressed with how far GNOME has come over the last couple of years. It is really at the point where I feel more productive in GNOME than the mainstream desktop environments. I love the focus on ensuring the default experience is as good as possible -- these days I have no time to tinker so having a desktop that is well configured out of the box is a huge plus. There are a few tweaks I have made which are easily done. Big credits to the GNOME team -- they have come a long way from the 2.x days.
God bless everyone putting effort into making Adwaita a little prettier, but GNOME 40 has been a trainwreck in my eyes. There are still glaring issues everywhere, and instead of the "sacred cow" slaughtering we were promised, we get more iteration on things people don't care about.
Here's an idea: anyone, literally anyone spend a few hours updating the GNOME thumbnail generation code. It's the sole reason why file managers and photo browsers don't feel 'snappy' on the desktop. Or maybe the new Chromebook-ified topbar could revert to it's 3.38 glory, instead of being stuck with meaningless bubbles. There are so many regressions, sidegrades and completely ignored issues that I had to switch to Cinnamon when GNOME 40 rolled out.
I'm hoping that most of these issues can be addressed in the coming months, but I don't have much faith. Everyone is seemingly more interested in making a 1.5gb Flatpak out of their 500kb shellutil.
GNOME is a volunteer project driven by people working on what they want to work on. If you want to improve the thumbnails, why not have that anyone be you?
Who are developing these changes? Is it the same people that design them? I.e UX people? Does it boil down to stories in sprints for someone to develop? Somehow I don't think this is the result of patches or pull requests by developers in a traditional sense.
Given the criticism towards flat design from both normal users and power users, I have to wonder who their target audience is supposed to be? Is it neither or perhaps flat design elitists who don't represent the needs and wants of users?
This is quite the negative and cynical comment and includes quite a bit of misinformation, I suggest taking a break from the net for a while. Your mental health is important.
Flat design got so thoroughly critized in the last decade, that people still jump on that bandwagon now that it's on its way out is astonishing. Leave it to Gnome to proudly announce flat design - worse-than-metro flat design, flat design without colors and backgrounds - for 2022. Unbelievable.