6 ms·

Guidelines from 30 years ago dont necessarily get to remain guidelines. Cos stuff changes. We've been using guis for 20 or 30 years now. We dont need to pretend

Guidelines from 30 years ago dont necessarily get to remain guidelines. Cos stuff changes. We've been using guis for 20 or 30 years now. We dont need to pretend they have shadows or include a realistic depiction of some related artifact in the icon. People just get it now without all that clutter.

Angostura 10y ago
> People just get it now without all that clutter. That's certainly what the proponents of flat design contend. In terms of measuring usability, I'm not so sure that's true. I've seen people hunting for buttons that didn't quite look like buttons
- oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
  It's not just the fact that "people can recognise a button even if it's flat" that is the issue (I often hear people making this argument) but that the differentiation between what is a button and what isn't (e.g. what is normal text) is reduced in flat design. It is possible to make 'non-buttons' work as buttons, but only if their function is clearly indicated via other means. This is the beauty of the traditional, three-dimensional, consistently-styled buttons: you get a 'button' by default without having to hint that it's a button using other means.
- Sylos 10y ago
  The Stock-Android Contacts-app has a pretty big design-flaw like that. When you open up a contact, it shows you a list of the ways that you can talk to this person. So, either call them, write an SMS, write an e-mail etc. And the Call-button is for whatever reason merged with the SMS-button. It's just one big button of which 4/5 is for calling and 1/5 to the right opens up the SMS-app. There is an icon representing SMS in that 1/5 of the button, but nothing indicates that it's a separate button from the 4/5 on the left.
  - tjl 10y ago
    Really? That's odd. The iOS Contacts app merges Facetime and phone calls, but at least that's somewhat reasonable as that's still a call. CallKit in iOS 10 is standardizing it so all VOIP calls will be treated the same as FaceTime and phone calls. iOS Contacts has a set of icons that look like the symbols on the app icons. That makes sense to me.
Lio 10y ago
I get this argument and I appreciate clean flat GUIs but I also feel without the shadows on buttons they've lost a bit of the affordance and visibility that used to be promoted as important when I studied GUI design. The classic example of good interface design, I was taught, was the "call lift or elevator" button. The theory goes that no one needs to be shown how to use a lift twice. You see it once and just know what every other lift button does even if they look slightly different. I realise that that skeuomorphism needn't necessarily map to the computer world but _something_ seems to be forgotten in the current trend for flat, non-skeumorphic designs.
leoc 10y ago
The thing is that aesthetically, the new OS X look is overall closer to the pre-colour MacOS from 30 years ago. That GUI http://www.businessinsider.com/mac-os-i-through-x-2012-7?op=1&IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/mac-os-i-through-x-2012-7?op=... is clean, approachable, sometimes funny; but at the same time it's sober, and communicates self-respect and a respect for the user and his/her work on the computer. You can see how even the original System 7 colourisation http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4ffb37e469beddc959000005-1200/mac-os-system-70-1991.jpg http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4ffb37e469beddc9590... hurts that a little ... and then we reach Aqua, which is a fairground attraction in comparison. The new OS X look is an attempt to recapture the restraint of the old Finder in high-res colour. Which is not to say that it doesn't have issues with button visibility, something the old Finder went out of its way to achieve.
vacri 10y ago
There isn't a binary choice between "flat design" and "skeumorphism". You can use lots of different visual cues to indicate things. I loved hearing that Windows 10 was going to go 'authentically digital', but that emotion died when it became apparent that they decided that mean 'flat design'. Just because something is on a computer screen doesn't mean it has to be made of simple single-colour polygons.

Angostura 10y ago

> People just get it now without all that clutter. That's certainly what the proponents of flat design contend. In terms of measuring usability, I'm not so sure that's true. I've seen people hunting for buttons that didn't quite look like buttons

oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
It's not just the fact that "people can recognise a button even if it's flat" that is the issue (I often hear people making this argument) but that the differentiation between what is a button and what isn't (e.g. what is normal text) is reduced in flat design. It is possible to make 'non-buttons' work as buttons, but only if their function is clearly indicated via other means. This is the beauty of the traditional, three-dimensional, consistently-styled buttons: you get a 'button' by default without having to hint that it's a button using other means.
Sylos 10y ago
The Stock-Android Contacts-app has a pretty big design-flaw like that. When you open up a contact, it shows you a list of the ways that you can talk to this person. So, either call them, write an SMS, write an e-mail etc. And the Call-button is for whatever reason merged with the SMS-button. It's just one big button of which 4/5 is for calling and 1/5 to the right opens up the SMS-app. There is an icon representing SMS in that 1/5 of the button, but nothing indicates that it's a separate button from the 4/5 on the left.
- tjl 10y ago
  Really? That's odd. The iOS Contacts app merges Facetime and phone calls, but at least that's somewhat reasonable as that's still a call. CallKit in iOS 10 is standardizing it so all VOIP calls will be treated the same as FaceTime and phone calls. iOS Contacts has a set of icons that look like the symbols on the app icons. That makes sense to me.

Lio 10y ago

I get this argument and I appreciate clean flat GUIs but I also feel without the shadows on buttons they've lost a bit of the affordance and visibility that used to be promoted as important when I studied GUI design. The classic example of good interface design, I was taught, was the "call lift or elevator" button. The theory goes that no one needs to be shown how to use a lift twice. You see it once and just know what every other lift button does even if they look slightly different. I realise that that skeuomorphism needn't necessarily map to the computer world but _something_ seems to be forgotten in the current trend for flat, non-skeumorphic designs.

leoc 10y ago

The thing is that aesthetically, the new OS X look is overall closer to the pre-colour MacOS from 30 years ago. That GUI http://www.businessinsider.com/mac-os-i-through-x-2012-7?op=1&IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/mac-os-i-through-x-2012-7?op=... is clean, approachable, sometimes funny; but at the same time it's sober, and communicates self-respect and a respect for the user and his/her work on the computer. You can see how even the original System 7 colourisation http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4ffb37e469beddc959000005-1200/mac-os-system-70-1991.jpg http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4ffb37e469beddc9590... hurts that a little ... and then we reach Aqua, which is a fairground attraction in comparison. The new OS X look is an attempt to recapture the restraint of the old Finder in high-res colour. Which is not to say that it doesn't have issues with button visibility, something the old Finder went out of its way to achieve.

vacri 10y ago

There isn't a binary choice between "flat design" and "skeumorphism". You can use lots of different visual cues to indicate things. I loved hearing that Windows 10 was going to go 'authentically digital', but that emotion died when it became apparent that they decided that mean 'flat design'. Just because something is on a computer screen doesn't mean it has to be made of simple single-colour polygons.