I think the biggest take away from this research is that a bad non-flat UI can make a site look ugly but a bad Flat UI can hinder user experience. Frankly, I t

I think the biggest take away from this research is that a bad non-flat UI can make a site look ugly but a bad Flat UI can hinder user experience. Frankly, I think that's a pretty obvious insight, but there are a lot of people who don't see it that way, so this research has value. It seems that the research is well thought out and executed, but it fails to create any meaningful advice for designers - hertz' example is just pure bad design even before the question of flat or non-flat UI, the other examples that proved significant are also glaringly bad design. A further study should fixate on a single aspect (such as in text links or navigation menus) - which designers could take real input from.