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Material design is like the design of a typical hotel room. It aims to accommodate everyone. It aims to be a temporary home for everyone and a permanent home fo

Material design is like the design of a typical hotel room. It aims to accommodate everyone. It aims to be a temporary home for everyone and a permanent home for no-one. Hardly anyone would actively choose to make such a clinical, impersonal, unopinionated environment their home. That's what happened with user interfaces when software ate the world – once the UI designers tried to reach everyone, be the place for everyone, the hotel room design took over. The call to bring artistic view into designing interfaces only makes sense if you are brave enough or lucky enough to allow your product to be opinionated, to not be for everyone. As a trained artist in the technology field, actively working on speculative HCI designs, I don't often see companies that are open to opinionated designs. Most expect the designer to produce decoration, whereas the actual strength of a good designer lies in creating a space, a choreography, an interaction that fits the needs of the customer exactly right. That solves the actual, human need in a way that is true to the medium. don't turn your project into a hotel room, I beg you!

nexuist 5y ago
I really enjoyed this comment. I wish new software was weird, I want software that looks bizarre, stuff that is almost nonsensical until you try to use it and realize it makes you feel good. Everything feels the same today because of hotel room design.
- ace2358 5y ago
  Interestingly enough, this is one of the aspects of being a music producer I enjoy! Every plug-in feels like it’s designed to be inspire you. Let’s be honest, an EQ plugin is super basic in what it does to the sound yet we are blessed with dozens of different designs. It’s the same with any other effect or instrument! The designer's get to have a field day! It’s my biggest criticism of Ableton - they’re built in modules (not really plugins) are as bland as the whole DAW and don’t act like 3rd party plugins.
  - httpsterio 5y ago
    basically all DAWs have a stock look and some plugins even ship without an UI and defaults to how that DAW visualizes them. I'm not a Live user, but I'm actually a bit envious because I like how the rack effects look and behave.
  - meowface 5y ago
    >It’s my biggest criticism of Ableton - they’re built in modules (not really plugins) are as bland as the whole DAW and don’t act like 3rd party plugins. This is one reason why I like Bitwig. It has fewer/inferior native devices compared to Ableton, but I like the UI/UX a lot more, and I almost exclusively use third-party plugins, anyway. Plus it has plugin isolation so a plugin crash won't crash the whole application.
    - atoav 5y ago
      As a long time ableton user that awitched to Bitwig I think you are doing them a disservice by labeling their native devices as inferior. They are different, they are somewhat reduced, but every single internal plugin is incredibly versatile, especially in combination with the insane modulation capabilities Bitwig has. Granted: I still like my Fabfilter Q3 over Bitwigs EQ+, but I also earn money using just that tool for days at a time. If I had to use just Bitwigs internal devices for the rest of my days I wouldn't feel limited at all, something that I wouldn't be able to say about any other DAW I used (except maybe Renoise, which is a totally different concept however).
- stemlord 5y ago
  I think the hotel room design is what's weird, as opposed to unique, specific designs. The former being the result of scaled-up data/market-driven decision making producing something no one person asked for... that's what's truly bizarre
- asymptosis 5y ago
  I say this unironically: you may enjoy Vim? I enjoy Vim. It is opinionated (or its defaults are), and when you first encounter it, it makes you ask why anyone would design something this way ... but then all of a sudden you grok it and you realise that you want everything to be like this.
  - nexuist 5y ago
    I've tried Vim before, and I want to love it, but I never found myself able to enjoy using it as much as VS Code. I know I can probably replicate all the functionality I need with plugins, but at that point it feels like switching for the sake of switching. I used to think I would learn Vim eventually so I could be productive on boxes I SSH into, but then VSC added native SSH/SFTP support and it's been a joy to use that. Completely obliterates any need to code in terminal anymore. That being said, I do enjoy using tmux a lot, especially when performing pen tests and exploring new boxes. So, maybe one day I'll learn to love Vim too?
trenning 5y ago
I agree with you and the other person who replied. I also see how UIs that have become hotel-room-like are similar to auto design. They're converging on a mean that is efficient which limits uniqueness. I feel like there's a place for being unique and place for being an efficient hotel. Social media sites, ex forums used to have this uniqueness, now they're consolidated hotels for efficiency (not necessarily user friendly efficiency unfortunately). This site is also a good example of being purposefully painful and bland even at the cost of hostility towards impaired users, but I guess it's unique in that way.
- peterburkimsher 5y ago
  Taken to an extreme, MySpace allowed every user to customise the appearance of their profile. That was great for individuality (and training a generation of web designers) but the site lacked a consistent look-and-feel, and the platform passed from the scene. I'd like to see it return, though probably in some subcultures (indie music, hospitality exchange) rather than the mainstream.
greggman3 5y ago
Lol, I just stayed at the SF Grand Hyatt for 5 weeks and noticed lots of bad design in the hotel rooms. 1. a shallow basin on top of bathroom counter that encourages splashing water outside the sink 2. because its a basin on top of the counter it's impossible to clean well under it so it looks disgusting if you happen to look on top of the counter under the basin. Like if you happen to push a toothbrush under there (easy) you'll likely never want to use that toothbrush again after to see what it touched. 3. because it's shallow the overflow drain hole faces up meaning bending over to get a mouth full of water has you staring straight into a moldy yucky hole. A more normal deep, more vertical sink the overflow hole might be just as gross inside but it's hard to accidentally look inside it and get grossed out with your nose and mouth being 3-4 inches from the mold. 4. The mirror like surface of the bathroom counter shows a very clear reflection into the back of the mirror light which has tons of gross dust and mold. Yea, don't design like a hotel room (eg, bad design) Note: The hotel was not bad, especially for the current price which I'm guessing is a COVID price ($150-$200 a night). It's just interesting how much form over function the interior designer's choices were. As for your comment in general, I like interesting UIs but I hate bad UIs more. 2 examples I've run into recently. * Match.com, if you start editing your profile it pops up an overlay to edit. If you click anywhere outside that overlay you lose anything you had entered. I wanted to grab a piece of text and lost several minutes of work. * Hinge. IIRC if you start entering something and switch away to another app for a moment you lose everything you started entering. * I forgot which app it was but today I needed to copy a phone number but the app wouldn't let my select it. * Shopify's phone number entry takes 10 characters. So if you type 123-555-1212 you get 123-555-12. If they don't want the dashes why not ignore them. Or better, allow them and just ignore them on the server. There's no good excuse for forcing the user to format a common form of number into some other format when the computer can do that for them. My point is, I'd much rather UI designers start with some framework that supports known best practices and also learning what are best practices before just making some random new UI because they feel the need to be different (not saying Material Design is that)

nexuist 5y ago

I really enjoyed this comment. I wish new software was weird, I want software that looks bizarre, stuff that is almost nonsensical until you try to use it and realize it makes you feel good. Everything feels the same today because of hotel room design.

ace2358 5y ago
Interestingly enough, this is one of the aspects of being a music producer I enjoy! Every plug-in feels like it’s designed to be inspire you. Let’s be honest, an EQ plugin is super basic in what it does to the sound yet we are blessed with dozens of different designs. It’s the same with any other effect or instrument! The designer's get to have a field day! It’s my biggest criticism of Ableton - they’re built in modules (not really plugins) are as bland as the whole DAW and don’t act like 3rd party plugins.
- httpsterio 5y ago
  basically all DAWs have a stock look and some plugins even ship without an UI and defaults to how that DAW visualizes them. I'm not a Live user, but I'm actually a bit envious because I like how the rack effects look and behave.
- meowface 5y ago
  >It’s my biggest criticism of Ableton - they’re built in modules (not really plugins) are as bland as the whole DAW and don’t act like 3rd party plugins. This is one reason why I like Bitwig. It has fewer/inferior native devices compared to Ableton, but I like the UI/UX a lot more, and I almost exclusively use third-party plugins, anyway. Plus it has plugin isolation so a plugin crash won't crash the whole application.
  - atoav 5y ago
    As a long time ableton user that awitched to Bitwig I think you are doing them a disservice by labeling their native devices as inferior. They are different, they are somewhat reduced, but every single internal plugin is incredibly versatile, especially in combination with the insane modulation capabilities Bitwig has. Granted: I still like my Fabfilter Q3 over Bitwigs EQ+, but I also earn money using just that tool for days at a time. If I had to use just Bitwigs internal devices for the rest of my days I wouldn't feel limited at all, something that I wouldn't be able to say about any other DAW I used (except maybe Renoise, which is a totally different concept however).
stemlord 5y ago
I think the hotel room design is what's weird, as opposed to unique, specific designs. The former being the result of scaled-up data/market-driven decision making producing something no one person asked for... that's what's truly bizarre
asymptosis 5y ago
I say this unironically: you may enjoy Vim? I enjoy Vim. It is opinionated (or its defaults are), and when you first encounter it, it makes you ask why anyone would design something this way ... but then all of a sudden you grok it and you realise that you want everything to be like this.
- nexuist 5y ago
  I've tried Vim before, and I want to love it, but I never found myself able to enjoy using it as much as VS Code. I know I can probably replicate all the functionality I need with plugins, but at that point it feels like switching for the sake of switching. I used to think I would learn Vim eventually so I could be productive on boxes I SSH into, but then VSC added native SSH/SFTP support and it's been a joy to use that. Completely obliterates any need to code in terminal anymore. That being said, I do enjoy using tmux a lot, especially when performing pen tests and exploring new boxes. So, maybe one day I'll learn to love Vim too?

trenning 5y ago

I agree with you and the other person who replied. I also see how UIs that have become hotel-room-like are similar to auto design. They're converging on a mean that is efficient which limits uniqueness. I feel like there's a place for being unique and place for being an efficient hotel. Social media sites, ex forums used to have this uniqueness, now they're consolidated hotels for efficiency (not necessarily user friendly efficiency unfortunately). This site is also a good example of being purposefully painful and bland even at the cost of hostility towards impaired users, but I guess it's unique in that way.

peterburkimsher 5y ago
Taken to an extreme, MySpace allowed every user to customise the appearance of their profile. That was great for individuality (and training a generation of web designers) but the site lacked a consistent look-and-feel, and the platform passed from the scene. I'd like to see it return, though probably in some subcultures (indie music, hospitality exchange) rather than the mainstream.

greggman3 5y ago

Lol, I just stayed at the SF Grand Hyatt for 5 weeks and noticed lots of bad design in the hotel rooms. 1. a shallow basin on top of bathroom counter that encourages splashing water outside the sink 2. because its a basin on top of the counter it's impossible to clean well under it so it looks disgusting if you happen to look on top of the counter under the basin. Like if you happen to push a toothbrush under there (easy) you'll likely never want to use that toothbrush again after to see what it touched. 3. because it's shallow the overflow drain hole faces up meaning bending over to get a mouth full of water has you staring straight into a moldy yucky hole. A more normal deep, more vertical sink the overflow hole might be just as gross inside but it's hard to accidentally look inside it and get grossed out with your nose and mouth being 3-4 inches from the mold. 4. The mirror like surface of the bathroom counter shows a very clear reflection into the back of the mirror light which has tons of gross dust and mold. Yea, don't design like a hotel room (eg, bad design) Note: The hotel was not bad, especially for the current price which I'm guessing is a COVID price ($150-$200 a night). It's just interesting how much form over function the interior designer's choices were. As for your comment in general, I like interesting UIs but I hate bad UIs more. 2 examples I've run into recently. * Match.com, if you start editing your profile it pops up an overlay to edit. If you click anywhere outside that overlay you lose anything you had entered. I wanted to grab a piece of text and lost several minutes of work. * Hinge. IIRC if you start entering something and switch away to another app for a moment you lose everything you started entering. * I forgot which app it was but today I needed to copy a phone number but the app wouldn't let my select it. * Shopify's phone number entry takes 10 characters. So if you type 123-555-1212 you get 123-555-12. If they don't want the dashes why not ignore them. Or better, allow them and just ignore them on the server. There's no good excuse for forcing the user to format a common form of number into some other format when the computer can do that for them. My point is, I'd much rather UI designers start with some framework that supports known best practices and also learning what are best practices before just making some random new UI because they feel the need to be different (not saying Material Design is that)