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I think the article is still spot on - the "minimal design" frenzy has influenced more than just bootstrap landing pages. The YouTube App on my iPad looks wond
by maho 11y ago
I think the article is still spot on - the "minimal design" frenzy has influenced more than just bootstrap landing pages.
The YouTube App on my iPad looks wonderful, but for the life of me, I can't find any back/forward navigation buttons. I suspect they were minimized away (I'm on iOS7 on my iPad2, this may be different in newer versions).
My Android phone (Cyanogenmod) has a wonderfully minimal interface that even includes a universal back button - but a "go forward" button was presumably deemed too messy and either thrown out completely, or hidden so deeply that I did not manage to find it in a year. This is especially bothersome in the Android browser...
Yesterday I used a personal Oxygen sensor, for safety reasons. It's a wonderfully designed piece, with just two buttons. Yet their functions are so overloaded, there is no way you can use the sensor without studying and memorizing the user manual.
My Windows PC becomes "simpler and more beautiful" each time the Windows version number goes up, but always at the cost of useful (but messy-looking) interfaces. Quick access to wireless network properties? Too messy! Modify the DDE-commands that the Explorer issues when double-clicking a file? A GUI is too messy for that, users should just use regedit.exe. The "go up"-button in Windows Explorer? Why, "go back" should satisfy all our users' needs!
Of course, destuffying messy interfaces is a noble and important cause. But the degree of mimimalism that current designers seem to strive for is, in my personal opinion, too radical, and I enjoyed reading a piece that points out how sometimes, great interfaces must have lots of buttons.
- Derpdiherp 11y agoYeah I can see where you're coming from here, the Android example does resonate with me. Perhaps I'm not seeing the forefront of this movement because I'm using Linux so much nowadays - I guess I saw the bootstrap example and left it there. It is odd how we're getting more and more screenspace to play with, phone screens and computer screens are getting larger with higher resolutions regularly, and yet we're pushing to remove functionality in the name of simplicity.