7 ms·

Just when I thought we might be starting to pivot away from flat design - does anyone know of a different design paradigm that is being used by smaller/fringe d

Just when I thought we might be starting to pivot away from flat design - does anyone know of a different design paradigm that is being used by smaller/fringe designers who are tired of flat/minimal UX/UI?

spankalee 11y ago
Throwback 90's? I'm so glad we're mostly rid of useless ornamentation: endless bevels, drop-shadows, gradients, and skeuomorphism... There are many different takes on flat design, so it's not a design mono-culture. Google, Microsoft and Apple all have unique, flat, design languages.
- smoyer 11y ago
  But perhaps a bit better than the '90s? It's uncluttered but everyone knows they shouldn't use <blink> and <marquee>.
- ihuman 11y ago
  What's wrong with gradients when used in a non-skeuomorphic way?
- pearjuice 11y ago
  >different takes on flat design Yes, they all use a different color scheme.
- kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
  More like throwback 1920's when Grotesque sans fonts became commonplace for signage and inscriptions on buildings.
- Vexs 11y ago
  Huh, I never thought of that, how they're all so different. Microsoft uses flat, very contrasting rectangles, versus google uses rounded shapes and pastel colors.
- bcoates 11y ago
  Just because you don't understand what they do doesn't make them useless ornamentation.
speik 11y ago
Just curious, why did you think there was a pivot away from flat design? I'm also interested in learning about some alternative designs though.
- fluidcruft 11y ago
  In my experience "flat design" seems to have become synonymous with hidden and undiscoverable. Metro and Material were/are horrible in this respect (I don't use iOS so I don't know how Apple's version fares in that regard). My experience is that it seems to be based on the philosophy of "just touch things to learn what they do" but then you're constantly punished with "oh, you touched something so things changed". It's a minefield. It's not particularly the "flat" design that's at fault here, but it's lumped with this simultaneous trend of feature deletion and cryptoUI.
  - Klathmon 11y ago
    A major part of material is that nothing is hidden. No right clicking, no long press, overflow style menus are meant to be used sparingly.
    - fluidcruft 11y ago
      Perhaps in theory, but not in practice. One thing about material is that you can't even see the edges of widgets. Sometimes you have to touch exactly on top of some letter because the sensitive area doesn't have any padding. Often when you think you're touching one thing, you end up touching another. Sometimes you have really tiny sensitive areas surrounded by vast wastelands of insensitive negative space with no visual separation of the two. Material also doesn't work well with pointing devices, IMHO. ModernUI seems to have evolved a little better in that aspect. I sense my Chromebook experience devolving with each update.
normloman 11y ago
Why do we need another paradigm? Stop designing websites to be identical.
- hodwik 11y ago
  Object-Oriented? Functional? Why do we need more programming paradigms? Stop writing programs to be identical.
  - hyperliner 11y ago
    Rim Shot http://instantrimshot.com/ http://instantrimshot.com/
achr2 11y ago
Relatively flat design is here to stay for a while. The trend though is getting away from purely flat, to flat with subtle edges, gradiens, shadows, etc. - generally flat design with better UI cues.
- twrkit 11y ago
  eg, Material Design with paper cards and drop shadows
hodwik 11y ago
Flat design is easy to accomplish for designers who never learned how to draw, or do computer modeling. Unfortunately, most design programs don't actually teach these foundational skills. That means there are a lot of designers out there who are forced to work in an oversimplified print-design style to hide their incompetence. As someone who hires for this stuff, finding skilled designers is unimaginably hard. I hear designers constantly complaining about the lack of jobs. They're full of it. The problem is the lack of skilled applicants. Design has become filled with lazy people, while being arguably one of the hardest fields to be good at. I've had ads out in a major US city for months for a very good paying design job, and have yet to see a portfolio that looked even moderately professional. That's really where this all comes from, flat design hides designer incompetence.
- optimusclimb 11y ago
  Months at a time? Try paying more.
  - hodwik 11y ago
    We've offered a salary twice the median for our city, plus benefits, paid transportation, 401k matching and 3-year enrollment to our profit sharing plan. It's not a pay issue as best as I can tell.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - optimusclimb 11y ago
      Twice the median for "the city" overall? Including waitresses, garbage men, bank tellers, etc? If a skilled surgeon (or someone 5+ years into their career at Goldman, etc) makes 4 times the median of your city, what does the median have to do with what they're worth? Sorry, not trying to be rude, but whenever I hear people saying they "can't find anyone", they still counter that they're offering enough...and yet they still can't fill the position. It doesn't make any sense.
ocdtrekkie 11y ago
I would be cool if everything was done with SVGs and styles that could be efficiently accomplished with SVGs. But I do kinda miss the more... Windows XP-style design.
mortenjorck 11y ago
I've always avoided the term "flat design" as I would call it an oversimplification of several different concepts and tools designers use. You might find this thing I wrote back in 2013, just before iOS 7 was unveiled, interesting: http://interuserface.net/2013/05/flat-is-not-the-opposite-of-skeuomorphic/ http://interuserface.net/2013/05/flat-is-not-the-opposite-of...
unabst 11y ago
There are many, but my vote goes for flat 3d [0]. It is a natural progression from purely flat. It adds more context, and gives the designer more room (an extra dimension!) to be innovative without being intrusive. Flat animated is sort of where it is at now. Google's material would fall under flat animated as well as much of iOS 8/9, but drop shadows and gradients are better replaced with subtle tones and accenting along the lines of posterized Anime art [1]. As a designer if you can make Google and Apple's latest efforts look dated, you've done an excellent job. Flat 3d sort of does that. -- [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=flat+3d+ui&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMIjIeKyPbWxwIVTpeICh1fegKp https://www.google.com/search?q=flat+3d+ui&es_sm=93&source=l... [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=posterized+art&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMI38rivvnWxwIVAk6ICh2wDQhM&biw=1502&bih=1212 https://www.google.com/search?q=posterized+art&es_sm=93&sour...
compbio 11y ago
Yes. Check out adaptive design. Instead of responsive, start talking in a way that specific user wants. No one-for-all design, which has to cater to both the power user and grandma, but a design that adapts itself to your (or similar) behavior. For example: count the times that users use 2-3 steps to perform the same task, then automatically make it a one-click process for them. Being able to change the top bar color on HN is also a form of adaptive design, just one requiring manual action.

spankalee 11y ago

Throwback 90's? I'm so glad we're mostly rid of useless ornamentation: endless bevels, drop-shadows, gradients, and skeuomorphism... There are many different takes on flat design, so it's not a design mono-culture. Google, Microsoft and Apple all have unique, flat, design languages.

smoyer 11y ago
But perhaps a bit better than the '90s? It's uncluttered but everyone knows they shouldn't use <blink> and <marquee>.
ihuman 11y ago
What's wrong with gradients when used in a non-skeuomorphic way?
pearjuice 11y ago
>different takes on flat design Yes, they all use a different color scheme.
kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
More like throwback 1920's when Grotesque sans fonts became commonplace for signage and inscriptions on buildings.
Vexs 11y ago
Huh, I never thought of that, how they're all so different. Microsoft uses flat, very contrasting rectangles, versus google uses rounded shapes and pastel colors.
bcoates 11y ago
Just because you don't understand what they do doesn't make them useless ornamentation.

speik 11y ago

Just curious, why did you think there was a pivot away from flat design? I'm also interested in learning about some alternative designs though.

fluidcruft 11y ago
In my experience "flat design" seems to have become synonymous with hidden and undiscoverable. Metro and Material were/are horrible in this respect (I don't use iOS so I don't know how Apple's version fares in that regard). My experience is that it seems to be based on the philosophy of "just touch things to learn what they do" but then you're constantly punished with "oh, you touched something so things changed". It's a minefield. It's not particularly the "flat" design that's at fault here, but it's lumped with this simultaneous trend of feature deletion and cryptoUI.
- Klathmon 11y ago
  A major part of material is that nothing is hidden. No right clicking, no long press, overflow style menus are meant to be used sparingly.
  - fluidcruft 11y ago
    Perhaps in theory, but not in practice. One thing about material is that you can't even see the edges of widgets. Sometimes you have to touch exactly on top of some letter because the sensitive area doesn't have any padding. Often when you think you're touching one thing, you end up touching another. Sometimes you have really tiny sensitive areas surrounded by vast wastelands of insensitive negative space with no visual separation of the two. Material also doesn't work well with pointing devices, IMHO. ModernUI seems to have evolved a little better in that aspect. I sense my Chromebook experience devolving with each update.

normloman 11y ago

Why do we need another paradigm? Stop designing websites to be identical.

hodwik 11y ago
Object-Oriented? Functional? Why do we need more programming paradigms? Stop writing programs to be identical.
- hyperliner 11y ago
  Rim Shot http://instantrimshot.com/ http://instantrimshot.com/

achr2 11y ago

Relatively flat design is here to stay for a while. The trend though is getting away from purely flat, to flat with subtle edges, gradiens, shadows, etc. - generally flat design with better UI cues.

twrkit 11y ago
eg, Material Design with paper cards and drop shadows

hodwik 11y ago

Flat design is easy to accomplish for designers who never learned how to draw, or do computer modeling. Unfortunately, most design programs don't actually teach these foundational skills. That means there are a lot of designers out there who are forced to work in an oversimplified print-design style to hide their incompetence. As someone who hires for this stuff, finding skilled designers is unimaginably hard. I hear designers constantly complaining about the lack of jobs. They're full of it. The problem is the lack of skilled applicants. Design has become filled with lazy people, while being arguably one of the hardest fields to be good at. I've had ads out in a major US city for months for a very good paying design job, and have yet to see a portfolio that looked even moderately professional. That's really where this all comes from, flat design hides designer incompetence.

optimusclimb 11y ago
Months at a time? Try paying more.
- hodwik 11y ago
  We've offered a salary twice the median for our city, plus benefits, paid transportation, 401k matching and 3-year enrollment to our profit sharing plan. It's not a pay issue as best as I can tell.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - optimusclimb 11y ago
    Twice the median for "the city" overall? Including waitresses, garbage men, bank tellers, etc? If a skilled surgeon (or someone 5+ years into their career at Goldman, etc) makes 4 times the median of your city, what does the median have to do with what they're worth? Sorry, not trying to be rude, but whenever I hear people saying they "can't find anyone", they still counter that they're offering enough...and yet they still can't fill the position. It doesn't make any sense.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago

I would be cool if everything was done with SVGs and styles that could be efficiently accomplished with SVGs. But I do kinda miss the more... Windows XP-style design.

mortenjorck 11y ago

I've always avoided the term "flat design" as I would call it an oversimplification of several different concepts and tools designers use. You might find this thing I wrote back in 2013, just before iOS 7 was unveiled, interesting: http://interuserface.net/2013/05/flat-is-not-the-opposite-of-skeuomorphic/ http://interuserface.net/2013/05/flat-is-not-the-opposite-of...

unabst 11y ago

There are many, but my vote goes for flat 3d [0]. It is a natural progression from purely flat. It adds more context, and gives the designer more room (an extra dimension!) to be innovative without being intrusive. Flat animated is sort of where it is at now. Google's material would fall under flat animated as well as much of iOS 8/9, but drop shadows and gradients are better replaced with subtle tones and accenting along the lines of posterized Anime art [1]. As a designer if you can make Google and Apple's latest efforts look dated, you've done an excellent job. Flat 3d sort of does that. -- [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=flat+3d+ui&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMIjIeKyPbWxwIVTpeICh1fegKp https://www.google.com/search?q=flat+3d+ui&es_sm=93&source=l... [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=posterized+art&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMI38rivvnWxwIVAk6ICh2wDQhM&biw=1502&bih=1212 https://www.google.com/search?q=posterized+art&es_sm=93&sour...

compbio 11y ago

Yes. Check out adaptive design. Instead of responsive, start talking in a way that specific user wants. No one-for-all design, which has to cater to both the power user and grandma, but a design that adapts itself to your (or similar) behavior. For example: count the times that users use 2-3 steps to perform the same task, then automatically make it a one-click process for them. Being able to change the top bar color on HN is also a form of adaptive design, just one requiring manual action.