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We need more buttons. What is the deal with flat design these days? I cannot figure out where to click. Have you used Windows 10 recently or a trendy website la

We need more buttons. What is the deal with flat design these days? I cannot figure out where to click. Have you used Windows 10 recently or a trendy website lately? It's a disaster in terms of UX. The same problem exists with hardware as well. I'm specifically thinking of the kitchen, but I've encountered it in many places. I recently moved into an apartment with 'modern' appliances have substituted buttons for flat surfaces you press or knobs that are difficult and unintuitive. For the first time - I had to read the manual to figure out how to work my refrigerator, range, and microwave. Buttons are intuitive, easy to use, and when they do not work it becomes apparent that something is broken or faulty. Why are we getting rid of them?

_hardwaregeek 8y ago
I think you'd like this scene from Mon Oncle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE9t98Gox60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE9t98Gox60
Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
> Buttons are intuitive, easy to use, and when they do not work it becomes apparent that something is broken or faulty. Why are we getting rid of them? Because of some silly idea of what makes something feel modern. The worst case of this in cars. Steering wheel controls wouldn't need to be a thing if I could reach towards my stereo and feel where the track skip buttons are without having to take my eyes off the road.
- jakelazaroff 8y ago
  Re: steering wheel controls, you don't think it's an improvement to be able to keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel?
  - badfrog 8y ago
    There's really no need for more than one hand on the wheel unless you're turning, in which case you shouldn't be using radio controls anyway.
    - paulryanrogers 8y ago
      Just don't ever: grow old, break an arm/hand, become disabled, get weakened by illness, or be born a smaller person. Then yes, you'll always have an extra hand for off-wheek controls.
      - jimmaswell 8y ago
        Applies to manuals too.
        badfrog 8y ago
        It take about 1.5 seconds to move the gear shift. You can wait that long before changing the radio station.
        paulryanrogers 8y ago
        Downvoted because this doesn't address the underlying point: differently abled people are just as important. And if their needs can be met with so little extra effort then why push back so hard? Consider that at a critical moment the difference between moving a thumb and moving ones whole arm and hand could be the difference between life and death. EDIT: fixed typos
        badfrog 8y ago
        That is an odd reason to downvote considering the comment I replied to didn't mention that at all.
        paulryanrogers 8y ago
        Fair enough. I thought it was replying to the comment by ellard.
      - ellard 8y ago
        I'm a short guy who has driven my manual car while my right hand was basically a stump from having a knife put through it and having it bandaged up. I did drive slower in general as I couldn't shift as fast and it hurt to do so using the stump, but otherwise I was fine with one hand on the wheel. For everyone else, we've had automatic cars for forever. There's also a video online of a man with no arms who learned how to drive their car without them. Edit: changed to be specific about the one hand on the wheel.
  - velosol 8y ago
    Those who drive manual cars are frequently removing a hand from the wheel to adjust an aspect of the car without looking and I would be surprised if the momentary loss of a hand on the wheel would mean manual drivers had more accidents than automatic drivers. Re: steering wheel buttons in general, it depends on how they're implemented. If you take an old idea [1] and provide tactile locating then it is easy to learn. If you can reuse a common paradigm (a knob for volume) there's no learning required. The steering wheel also is already a busy place - you have two or more stalks nearby, sometimes cruise control is part of the steering wheel buttons and even if not the amount of space means you are forced to provide a subset of functions. A stereo with tactile-marked buttons and knobs is known to most drivers via other paradigms and is easy to swap between cars. [1]: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2350059A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US2350059A/en
- bhelkey 8y ago
  I have physical buttons on my stereo but still choose to use steering wheel controls. It is easier and feels much safer especially when I feel like I need both hands on the wheel.
- heroprotagonist 8y ago
  I wish Spotify on Android Auto would take this feedback. Seriously, a rotary knob can switch focus to the next/previous UI control, so that additional push of tactile button on said rotary knob will activate the control, but they can't simply detect the rotation as 'next/previous', with the push button as 'pause/play' toggle? Instead I have to rotate the nob and visually track the thin active element outline each time I enter or swap to the app just to get a single tactile 'forward' control. Or, I give up, and continue the process of memorizing the button location on the screen and building muscle memory through repetition to correctly press the same spot on the screen each time without looking at it. Then hope I never need to be in a different car or that nobody adjusts my seat's X/Y/Z axis to screw up that muscle memory. I suspect it's Spotify's issue, and not Android Auto itself, but most of the Android Auto apps work that way and I don't know where the fault originates. But regardless of who can fix it, it's horrible to allow UX to be designed ignorantly when it is placed to have potential life/death impact.
untog 8y ago
> Why are we getting rid of them? Because they break easily. The home button is probably one of the most commonly broken parts of an iPhone, so the X doesn't come with one: ta-da, can't break it any more. Plus, if it's on a screen, you can have an unlimited combination of buttons whenever you want - think of the screen real estate freed up by using an on-screen keyboard on the iPhone compared to a Blackberry. For what it's worth, I agree with you that buttons are better. But their disappearance isn't a random occurrence.
- penagwin 8y ago
  Home buttons break? Do you mean break in the UX/UI or physically break? I've worked at a phone repair shop for the last 2 years, and I mainly work on iPhones. Very, very rarely are home buttons broken outside of a repair. Usually when they are broken the phone isn't in.... great condition. In fact I'm not sure I recall a home button ever being broken without the rest of the phone being completely shattered.
  - mkoryak 8y ago
    That may be your experience, but I think OP was trying to say that stuff with more moving parts has more points of failure than stuff with no moving parts.
    - badfrog 8y ago
      > I think OP was trying to say that stuff with more moving parts has more points of failure than stuff with no moving parts That's a reasonable point, but it seems they've chosen to illustrate the point with an example that isn't true.
  - sosuke 8y ago
    https://www.businessinsider.com/does-iphone-home-button-break-2015-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/does-iphone-home-button-brea... That was the first time I heard of the iPhone home button breaking.
  - untog 8y ago
thrownaway954 8y ago
i agree about Windows 10. God forbid you put Windows Explorer over something that has a white background as well. There is no way to tell where the top of the window is since Windows Explorer will blend into the white background. Why couldn't they at least put a border around the window or something.
badfrog 8y ago
> What is the deal with flat design these days? I cannot figure out where to click. Have you used Windows 10 recently or a trendy website lately? It's a disaster in terms of UX. Google's Material design system actually works well when implemented correctly. If you look at Inbox, you can see at least three distinct layers on the home screen with drop shadows clearly indicating the hierarchy. The problem is that lots of people tried to copy this system without understanding why it works and ended up with unusable messes.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Material Design was an evolution from the flat design wave (it's still flatter than peak skeumorphism, but it's not really flat.) I'm not sure that the continuing flat design trend is so much of a bad copy of MD as a trend which preceded MD and continued outside of it.
ihuman 8y ago
Steve Jobs answered this question back in 2007[0] > Now, why do we need a revolutionary user interface. Here’s four smartphones, right? Motorola Q, the BlackBerry, Palm Treo, Nokia E62 — the usual suspects. And, what’s wrong with their user interfaces? Well, the problem with them is really sort of in the bottom 40 there. It’s this stuff right there. They all have these keyboards that are there whether or not you need them to be there. And they all have these control buttons that are fixed in plastic and are the same for every application. Well, every application wants a slightly different user interface, a slightly optimized set of buttons, just for it. > And what happens if you think of a great idea six months from now? You can’t run around and add a button to these things. They’re already shipped. So what do you do? It doesn’t work because the buttons and the controls can’t change. They can’t change for each application, and they can’t change down the road if you think of another great idea you want to add to this product. > Well, how do you solve this? Hmm. It turns out, we have solved it. We solved in computers 20 years ago. We solved it with a bit-mapped screen that could display anything we want. Put any user interface up. And a pointing device. We solved it with the mouse. We solved this problem. So how are we going to take this to a mobile device? What we’re going to do is get rid of all these buttons and just make a giant screen. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN4U5FqrOdQ&t=323 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN4U5FqrOdQ&t=323
- komali2 8y ago
  > Put any user interface up. And a pointing device. We solved it with the mouse. We solved this problem. They solved the problem... by putting "exit, maximize, minimize" buttons at the top-right (or top-left) of every window. By putting "file, view, edit" dropdowns at the top-left of ever application. By putting "back, forward, refresh" at the top of the browser.
  - mattnewton 8y ago
    Not every application- I don’t see those buttons when dialing a phone number, or when watching a video or playing a game.
  - einr 8y ago
    ...and also by still having a keyboard with a fixed and standardized layout, which Jobs' argumentation conveniently ignores. I'd like to see how much of a success the Macintosh would have been with just a mouse ;)
nostromo 8y ago
I'm actually afraid to buy a new car for this very reason. All of my favorite cars now have a giant iPad in the console and almost no physical buttons. When I'm barreling down the interstate and want to change the music, I don't want to fiddle around with a touch screen that requires any sort of attention.
- AWildC182 8y ago
  This x1000. I really wish touchscreen displays were illegal for vehicles. Everything should be done through dedicated buttons and multi-function keys. They've started doing this in aircraft as well and it's infuriating. Try typing in an airport, squawk code, or frequency on a tiny touchscreen display with moderate turbulence in IMC. Not fun...
  - fredley 8y ago
    This is surprising, I thought air regulations were strict enough to allow this not to happen.
- ErikVandeWater 8y ago
  I think there are ways this could be overcome, and the screen could be way, wayyyy better. 1. Default presets. When you enter the car, you press a menu option to immediately set the car to all your settings (radio to the right station, GPS app opens,seat moves, etc.) (could be done with a button too honestly 2. Increased primary element size - Use 90% of the screen to display the setting you are changing so you don't have to look directly at it. Reduce the size of options you are not currently interested in changing. 3. Gestures - Use gestures to change settings using your muscle memory, not eyes. 4. Use the iPad to display video that helps you drive (blind spot, backup camera) 5. Use of color - When you crank the heat the screen is cast to in a red shade. Make it more intuitive at the subconscious level. 6. Full use of screen to make a change - When you want to adjust with a button or knob, you have to get your hand exactly on that button or knob. But on a screen, you could swipe left anywhere and get the same effect. This would use significantly less attention. 7. Contextual UI - The car notices the windows are fogging up and prompts if you want to turn on screen defrosters. 8.Multiple UIs and UI customizability. Don't like this UI? Try this one! Or just change the one little setting that annoys you. It's your damn car. 9. Stopped? Here's something interesting put on the screen so you stay engaged. 10. Safety tips (stats on your driving, or suggestions on ways to drive safer) 11. Haptic feedback - When you make a change, the screen could vibrate to indicate the change was received 12. Shortcuts - Have your favorite driving settings most conveniently available 13. There's probably more, but if I wrote a 13th one, it would be unlucky! :P
mc32 8y ago
The worst thing about these flat control surfaces for appliances is the cheap plastickey film degrades over time. Knobs and Buttons break too, but you can fix them or replace them physically. Cheap phones get replaced every couple of years, (so wear and breakdown may be slightly more forgivable) but appliances are expected to last a while longer.

_hardwaregeek 8y ago

I think you'd like this scene from Mon Oncle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE9t98Gox60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE9t98Gox60

Sohcahtoa82 8y ago

> Buttons are intuitive, easy to use, and when they do not work it becomes apparent that something is broken or faulty. Why are we getting rid of them? Because of some silly idea of what makes something feel modern. The worst case of this in cars. Steering wheel controls wouldn't need to be a thing if I could reach towards my stereo and feel where the track skip buttons are without having to take my eyes off the road.

jakelazaroff 8y ago
Re: steering wheel controls, you don't think it's an improvement to be able to keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel?
- badfrog 8y ago
  There's really no need for more than one hand on the wheel unless you're turning, in which case you shouldn't be using radio controls anyway.
  - paulryanrogers 8y ago
    Just don't ever: grow old, break an arm/hand, become disabled, get weakened by illness, or be born a smaller person. Then yes, you'll always have an extra hand for off-wheek controls.
    - jimmaswell 8y ago
      Applies to manuals too.
      - badfrog 8y ago
        It take about 1.5 seconds to move the gear shift. You can wait that long before changing the radio station.
        paulryanrogers 8y ago
        Downvoted because this doesn't address the underlying point: differently abled people are just as important. And if their needs can be met with so little extra effort then why push back so hard? Consider that at a critical moment the difference between moving a thumb and moving ones whole arm and hand could be the difference between life and death. EDIT: fixed typos
        badfrog 8y ago
        That is an odd reason to downvote considering the comment I replied to didn't mention that at all.
        paulryanrogers 8y ago
        Fair enough. I thought it was replying to the comment by ellard.
    - ellard 8y ago
      I'm a short guy who has driven my manual car while my right hand was basically a stump from having a knife put through it and having it bandaged up. I did drive slower in general as I couldn't shift as fast and it hurt to do so using the stump, but otherwise I was fine with one hand on the wheel. For everyone else, we've had automatic cars for forever. There's also a video online of a man with no arms who learned how to drive their car without them. Edit: changed to be specific about the one hand on the wheel.
- velosol 8y ago
  Those who drive manual cars are frequently removing a hand from the wheel to adjust an aspect of the car without looking and I would be surprised if the momentary loss of a hand on the wheel would mean manual drivers had more accidents than automatic drivers. Re: steering wheel buttons in general, it depends on how they're implemented. If you take an old idea [1] and provide tactile locating then it is easy to learn. If you can reuse a common paradigm (a knob for volume) there's no learning required. The steering wheel also is already a busy place - you have two or more stalks nearby, sometimes cruise control is part of the steering wheel buttons and even if not the amount of space means you are forced to provide a subset of functions. A stereo with tactile-marked buttons and knobs is known to most drivers via other paradigms and is easy to swap between cars. [1]: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2350059A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US2350059A/en
bhelkey 8y ago
I have physical buttons on my stereo but still choose to use steering wheel controls. It is easier and feels much safer especially when I feel like I need both hands on the wheel.
heroprotagonist 8y ago
I wish Spotify on Android Auto would take this feedback. Seriously, a rotary knob can switch focus to the next/previous UI control, so that additional push of tactile button on said rotary knob will activate the control, but they can't simply detect the rotation as 'next/previous', with the push button as 'pause/play' toggle? Instead I have to rotate the nob and visually track the thin active element outline each time I enter or swap to the app just to get a single tactile 'forward' control. Or, I give up, and continue the process of memorizing the button location on the screen and building muscle memory through repetition to correctly press the same spot on the screen each time without looking at it. Then hope I never need to be in a different car or that nobody adjusts my seat's X/Y/Z axis to screw up that muscle memory. I suspect it's Spotify's issue, and not Android Auto itself, but most of the Android Auto apps work that way and I don't know where the fault originates. But regardless of who can fix it, it's horrible to allow UX to be designed ignorantly when it is placed to have potential life/death impact.

untog 8y ago

> Why are we getting rid of them? Because they break easily. The home button is probably one of the most commonly broken parts of an iPhone, so the X doesn't come with one: ta-da, can't break it any more. Plus, if it's on a screen, you can have an unlimited combination of buttons whenever you want - think of the screen real estate freed up by using an on-screen keyboard on the iPhone compared to a Blackberry. For what it's worth, I agree with you that buttons are better. But their disappearance isn't a random occurrence.

penagwin 8y ago
Home buttons break? Do you mean break in the UX/UI or physically break? I've worked at a phone repair shop for the last 2 years, and I mainly work on iPhones. Very, very rarely are home buttons broken outside of a repair. Usually when they are broken the phone isn't in.... great condition. In fact I'm not sure I recall a home button ever being broken without the rest of the phone being completely shattered.
- mkoryak 8y ago
  That may be your experience, but I think OP was trying to say that stuff with more moving parts has more points of failure than stuff with no moving parts.
  - badfrog 8y ago
    > I think OP was trying to say that stuff with more moving parts has more points of failure than stuff with no moving parts That's a reasonable point, but it seems they've chosen to illustrate the point with an example that isn't true.
- sosuke 8y ago
  https://www.businessinsider.com/does-iphone-home-button-break-2015-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/does-iphone-home-button-brea... That was the first time I heard of the iPhone home button breaking.
- untog 8y ago

thrownaway954 8y ago

i agree about Windows 10. God forbid you put Windows Explorer over something that has a white background as well. There is no way to tell where the top of the window is since Windows Explorer will blend into the white background. Why couldn't they at least put a border around the window or something.

badfrog 8y ago

> What is the deal with flat design these days? I cannot figure out where to click. Have you used Windows 10 recently or a trendy website lately? It's a disaster in terms of UX. Google's Material design system actually works well when implemented correctly. If you look at Inbox, you can see at least three distinct layers on the home screen with drop shadows clearly indicating the hierarchy. The problem is that lots of people tried to copy this system without understanding why it works and ended up with unusable messes.

dragonwriter 8y ago
Material Design was an evolution from the flat design wave (it's still flatter than peak skeumorphism, but it's not really flat.) I'm not sure that the continuing flat design trend is so much of a bad copy of MD as a trend which preceded MD and continued outside of it.

ihuman 8y ago

Steve Jobs answered this question back in 2007[0] > Now, why do we need a revolutionary user interface. Here’s four smartphones, right? Motorola Q, the BlackBerry, Palm Treo, Nokia E62 — the usual suspects. And, what’s wrong with their user interfaces? Well, the problem with them is really sort of in the bottom 40 there. It’s this stuff right there. They all have these keyboards that are there whether or not you need them to be there. And they all have these control buttons that are fixed in plastic and are the same for every application. Well, every application wants a slightly different user interface, a slightly optimized set of buttons, just for it. > And what happens if you think of a great idea six months from now? You can’t run around and add a button to these things. They’re already shipped. So what do you do? It doesn’t work because the buttons and the controls can’t change. They can’t change for each application, and they can’t change down the road if you think of another great idea you want to add to this product. > Well, how do you solve this? Hmm. It turns out, we have solved it. We solved in computers 20 years ago. We solved it with a bit-mapped screen that could display anything we want. Put any user interface up. And a pointing device. We solved it with the mouse. We solved this problem. So how are we going to take this to a mobile device? What we’re going to do is get rid of all these buttons and just make a giant screen. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN4U5FqrOdQ&t=323 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN4U5FqrOdQ&t=323

komali2 8y ago
> Put any user interface up. And a pointing device. We solved it with the mouse. We solved this problem. They solved the problem... by putting "exit, maximize, minimize" buttons at the top-right (or top-left) of every window. By putting "file, view, edit" dropdowns at the top-left of ever application. By putting "back, forward, refresh" at the top of the browser.
- mattnewton 8y ago
  Not every application- I don’t see those buttons when dialing a phone number, or when watching a video or playing a game.
- einr 8y ago
  ...and also by still having a keyboard with a fixed and standardized layout, which Jobs' argumentation conveniently ignores. I'd like to see how much of a success the Macintosh would have been with just a mouse ;)

nostromo 8y ago

I'm actually afraid to buy a new car for this very reason. All of my favorite cars now have a giant iPad in the console and almost no physical buttons. When I'm barreling down the interstate and want to change the music, I don't want to fiddle around with a touch screen that requires any sort of attention.

AWildC182 8y ago
This x1000. I really wish touchscreen displays were illegal for vehicles. Everything should be done through dedicated buttons and multi-function keys. They've started doing this in aircraft as well and it's infuriating. Try typing in an airport, squawk code, or frequency on a tiny touchscreen display with moderate turbulence in IMC. Not fun...
- fredley 8y ago
  This is surprising, I thought air regulations were strict enough to allow this not to happen.
ErikVandeWater 8y ago
I think there are ways this could be overcome, and the screen could be way, wayyyy better. 1. Default presets. When you enter the car, you press a menu option to immediately set the car to all your settings (radio to the right station, GPS app opens,seat moves, etc.) (could be done with a button too honestly 2. Increased primary element size - Use 90% of the screen to display the setting you are changing so you don't have to look directly at it. Reduce the size of options you are not currently interested in changing. 3. Gestures - Use gestures to change settings using your muscle memory, not eyes. 4. Use the iPad to display video that helps you drive (blind spot, backup camera) 5. Use of color - When you crank the heat the screen is cast to in a red shade. Make it more intuitive at the subconscious level. 6. Full use of screen to make a change - When you want to adjust with a button or knob, you have to get your hand exactly on that button or knob. But on a screen, you could swipe left anywhere and get the same effect. This would use significantly less attention. 7. Contextual UI - The car notices the windows are fogging up and prompts if you want to turn on screen defrosters. 8.Multiple UIs and UI customizability. Don't like this UI? Try this one! Or just change the one little setting that annoys you. It's your damn car. 9. Stopped? Here's something interesting put on the screen so you stay engaged. 10. Safety tips (stats on your driving, or suggestions on ways to drive safer) 11. Haptic feedback - When you make a change, the screen could vibrate to indicate the change was received 12. Shortcuts - Have your favorite driving settings most conveniently available 13. There's probably more, but if I wrote a 13th one, it would be unlucky! :P

mc32 8y ago

The worst thing about these flat control surfaces for appliances is the cheap plastickey film degrades over time. Knobs and Buttons break too, but you can fix them or replace them physically. Cheap phones get replaced every couple of years, (so wear and breakdown may be slightly more forgivable) but appliances are expected to last a while longer.