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This is a very flat UI. I ran usability tests in the past with enterprise software that followed Windows inspired flat design. Guess what the users could not ma
by onli 5y ago
This is a very flat UI. I ran usability tests in the past with enterprise software that followed Windows inspired flat design. Guess what the users could not manage? The flat design, as it destroys easy discoverability of what can be clicked on and what can not. This weighed as heavy on the usability of the software as other UI mistakes and usually compounded them - as in, a difficult screen, difficult because it had a wrong interaction flow, got completely unusable for users because a button did not look like a button.
Flat design got so thoroughly critized in the last decade, that people still jump on that bandwagon now that it's on its way out is astonishing. Leave it to Gnome to proudly announce flat design - worse-than-metro flat design, flat design without colors and backgrounds - for 2022. Unbelievable.
- flyinghamster 5y agoI long ago realized that I was far, far away from GNOME's target audience. If I have to install a half dozen plugins just to get things to behave the way I expect them to, then the answer is a resounding NO. These days, I gravitate to XFCE for virtual machines, low-power systems, and remote desktops, and Cinnamon for full-fat machines with a GPU. Why am I not surprised that GNOME would adopt flat design? I know it's trendy, but any time I have to use a recent Windows flat-design application (hello Visual Studio!) I find it annoying - it becomes a lot harder to determine whether something is a modal popup or an independent window.
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoI still don't know what GNOME target audience is. I have yet to find a gnome shell user that doesn't use tons of plugins. It's like the GNOME dev never actually puts mockups in the hand of real users before starting to code.
- toomim 5y agoIt's no excuse for Gnome's designers to say "you're not my target audience." Linux's default desktop UI should be good for all users. It's possible, and something to strive for.
- dathinab 5y agoThrough don't forget the context: It's flat design in the title bar where everything in there (except sometimes the title) tends to be interactive. Making the window header bars feel less heavy is important. But tbh. the problem was placing all kind of stuff into the title bars. Works well for a few handpicked examples but in general it works just so-so and in context of cross platform it falls apart... So IMHO they should instead of trying to use the space in the header bars of windows they should have tried to see if they can eliminate header bars instead.
- onli 5y ago> It's flat design in the title bar where everything in there (except sometimes the title) tends to be interactive. Hm, anecdata: I run a very simple window manager called IceWM. It has a flat IconButton at the left of the title bar, giving it an alternative way to access the window menu. It took years before I understood that you can click on hat. At least a decade I'm pretty sure. > But tbh. the problem was placing all kind of stuff into the title bars. Works well for a few handpicked examples but in general it works just so-so and in context of cross platform it falls apart... I completely agree. The examples they show are mostly awful, and even though with the current design (the less flattened) it's clearer what's clickable, it does not look great. So I think I understand where they are coming from with this change aesthetically, but like you said, the core problem is misusing the title bar space.