The "flat design" we've had for the past decade really is flat design, but the dubbing of what preceded it as "skeuomorphism" was a misnomer, in most cases. In

The "flat design" we've had for the past decade really is flat design, but the dubbing of what preceded it as "skeuomorphism" was a misnomer, in most cases. In theory, an old "save" icon would look like a floppy disk (or perhaps a picture of a red tape-recorder "button") whereas a modern, flat "save" icon would be the word "SAVE". In practice, if a button is labelled "SAVE", but in beautifully shaded and embossed typography, it too is "skeuomorphic", while some ugly disk-drive symbol, in the flat style of highway sign, is acceptably "flat". A decade ago, most popular software did not abuse skeuomorphism. It was primarily great masses of iPhone crap apps, and four or five, widely talked-about, Scott Forstall iOS projects. Like others in this thread are saying, I don't care much whether the software I use is "fun", but I do want it to be beautiful and intuitive. "Flat design" has been bad in that regard, and primarily as a reaction to a minority of apps looked like toasters or radios.