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I think usability has to take a part on that. You can scan an interface of this fashion and be almost certain about what is a button, what is a scroll bar, wha

I think usability has to take a part on that. You can scan an interface of this fashion and be almost certain about what is a button, what is a scroll bar, what is a text input, etcetera. While with Windows 8+ the flat UI lets a huge space for ambiguity and causes a bigger cognitive load to the user, who is forced to tell things between flat rectangles and lines.

kentonv 5y ago
Consistency is boring, and HTML makes it entirely too easy to do entirely your own thing. The result is most modern designers are trying to make a design that wows people at a glance, which is often at odds with actual usability and discoverability. UI design is basically fashion now, with passing fads and everything. Conforming to any kind of standard makes you look dated. I wish we could somehow force people to use a standard toolkit again, but I think the cat is out of the bag.
- endgame 5y ago
  Not sure that's the real cause, given the satirical $STARTUP websites that all use the same bootstrap theme.
- Gualdrapo 5y ago
  I can't imagine Microsoft designers doing the mockups for Windows in HTML/CSS, but you bring an interesting point - how the web, which afaik at its very beginning was intended for text (and multimedia), eventually brought UIs. And yes, on text you'd want a minimal UI. You don't see books with flashy things everywhere competing for your attention, maybe excepting kids' books. My guess is that, as someone already pointed about design doing a full circle again in a few years, it already has happened in the web several times - plain text and 'brutalist' design, then the native UI controls that had to be used within web interfaces, then skeumorphic design to compensate for the native UI controls, then you could style those UI controls as you wished, then flattening all the design again because most of web is text.
- kalleboo 5y ago
  > UI design is basically fashion now I remember back in the 90's, when Apple and Microsoft bragged about having big UI labs where they tried to take a scientific approach to UI design where they'd try out minor UI tweaks on users and observe what worked and what didn't. Looking at the designs coming out of both companies now (but mostly Apple) it's extremely clear they they are designed just to look "fresh" and "pretty" with no real justification behind it. > I wish we could somehow force people to use a standard toolkit again To be fair, in the 90's, there were plenty of crazily themed programs. Basically any media playing app seemed required to have some insane theme (WinAmp is fondly remembered but that was also a non-standard UI, which was so poorly-designed they needed a button to double the size of it so you could hit some buttons easier). Every PC sound card came with a suite of programs that tried to mimic the appearance of a home Hi-Fi system complete with 7-segment displays and fake cassette tape reels.
actually_a_dog 5y ago
> You can scan an interface of this fashion and be almost certain about what is a button, what is a scroll bar, what is a text input, etcetera. Bingo. This is exactly it for me, right here. Being able to tell what I can click on and expect it to do something, at a glance and without having to guess is the killer feature, IMO. How did we lose our way so badly that "can I click on this thing?" even became a reasonable question to ask of a modern UI?
- hulitu 5y ago
  How about 2 scrollbars (they are very often those days) ?
Pxtl 5y ago
I feel like we got so close with windows phone 7, which used the flat UI but had an utterly merciless and unforgiving level of standardization. Colored rectangle meant button. White rectangle meant textbox. You don't get to put your personal brand on this.

kentonv 5y ago

Consistency is boring, and HTML makes it entirely too easy to do entirely your own thing. The result is most modern designers are trying to make a design that wows people at a glance, which is often at odds with actual usability and discoverability. UI design is basically fashion now, with passing fads and everything. Conforming to any kind of standard makes you look dated. I wish we could somehow force people to use a standard toolkit again, but I think the cat is out of the bag.

endgame 5y ago
Not sure that's the real cause, given the satirical $STARTUP websites that all use the same bootstrap theme.
Gualdrapo 5y ago
I can't imagine Microsoft designers doing the mockups for Windows in HTML/CSS, but you bring an interesting point - how the web, which afaik at its very beginning was intended for text (and multimedia), eventually brought UIs. And yes, on text you'd want a minimal UI. You don't see books with flashy things everywhere competing for your attention, maybe excepting kids' books. My guess is that, as someone already pointed about design doing a full circle again in a few years, it already has happened in the web several times - plain text and 'brutalist' design, then the native UI controls that had to be used within web interfaces, then skeumorphic design to compensate for the native UI controls, then you could style those UI controls as you wished, then flattening all the design again because most of web is text.
kalleboo 5y ago
> UI design is basically fashion now I remember back in the 90's, when Apple and Microsoft bragged about having big UI labs where they tried to take a scientific approach to UI design where they'd try out minor UI tweaks on users and observe what worked and what didn't. Looking at the designs coming out of both companies now (but mostly Apple) it's extremely clear they they are designed just to look "fresh" and "pretty" with no real justification behind it. > I wish we could somehow force people to use a standard toolkit again To be fair, in the 90's, there were plenty of crazily themed programs. Basically any media playing app seemed required to have some insane theme (WinAmp is fondly remembered but that was also a non-standard UI, which was so poorly-designed they needed a button to double the size of it so you could hit some buttons easier). Every PC sound card came with a suite of programs that tried to mimic the appearance of a home Hi-Fi system complete with 7-segment displays and fake cassette tape reels.

actually_a_dog 5y ago

> You can scan an interface of this fashion and be almost certain about what is a button, what is a scroll bar, what is a text input, etcetera. Bingo. This is exactly it for me, right here. Being able to tell what I can click on and expect it to do something, at a glance and without having to guess is the killer feature, IMO. How did we lose our way so badly that "can I click on this thing?" even became a reasonable question to ask of a modern UI?

hulitu 5y ago
How about 2 scrollbars (they are very often those days) ?

Pxtl 5y ago

I feel like we got so close with windows phone 7, which used the flat UI but had an utterly merciless and unforgiving level of standardization. Colored rectangle meant button. White rectangle meant textbox. You don't get to put your personal brand on this.