4 ms·

From the outside, it seems like the poison of flat design only flourished when Jobs died. The beautiful, thoughtful, intuitive, accessible skeuomorphism was rep

From the outside, it seems like the poison of flat design only flourished when Jobs died. The beautiful, thoughtful, intuitive, accessible skeuomorphism was replaced with flat design only after Jobs wasn’t there. Was Jony only able to wrench away the beauty then? It seems like it. Humans live in a 3D world and take visual cues from things like lighting, gradients, shadows, materials and textures. Flat design strips that all away.

bogwog 4y ago
I agree, I love skeuomorphic designs even though the common consensus seems to be that it's obsolete/outdated. I guess it's a consequence of the unusually high influence Apple has on the design world. It seems like no matter what Apple decides to do, every single designer will blindly follow them.
- bluk 4y ago
  I don't know if most people consider skeuomorphic designs obsolete/outdated, but the costs would be far greater today compared to when iOS was only for a handful of different resolutions for the iPhone and iPad. Not only do you have to consider the physical screen size differences with possibly different PPI, but all of the sidebar/split-screen/multi-window modes would require additional work. It's kind of like when most websites started to switch to responsive designs where image heavy layouts and other fun animations kinda dropped off. It was just too costly to make things work well.
  - musesum 4y ago
    > when most websites started to switch to responsive designs where image heavy layouts and other fun animations kinda dropped off Yep, things got harder with AutoRotate on the iPad. It took a while to get used to SwiftUI. But the pay off is immediate when switching from Portrait to Landscape mode. Now, everything flows perfectly. Imagine designing for every single kind of device: be it watch, phone, pad, desktop, and TV. It kinda forces you to think differently.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      I think it depends on the level of skeumorphism — a button doesn’t need to be a bitmap a-la Bryce or Kai’s Power Tools or Poser to be skeumorphic, it can be a bevelled rounded rectangle like MacOS 8 or a more complex but still procedurally generated 3D effect of the Aqua UI.
      - musesum 4y ago
        > it can be a bevelled rounded rectangle ok, yeah. Was thinking of the original Notepad, where the frayed yellow tear-off sheet border drove me nuts! Anything tied to the "desktop metaphor" - bits are not atoms
- timeon 4y ago
  > It seems like no matter what Apple decides to do, every single designer will blindly follow them. While iOS was still skeuomorphic - first app I had that was flat was made by Microsoft. (Photosynth app)
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    Yeah I think this flat trend was more started by MS with the Zune HD, Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8. Apple was late to the flat game with iOS 7.
wahnfrieden 4y ago
Nonsense given we are still in flat design territory (a several years refined version of it) unless you really consider the current state remains poison
deleted 4y ago
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DRW_ 4y ago
I tend to prefer some of the more 'flat' modern designs in many ways, but I do think people are too binary about the skeuomorphic stuff. They could have modernised the design and still kept some of the useful skeuomorphic cues. I think what pushed people away from the skeuomorphic stuff is that it feels like the aesthetics can become to feel dated quicker? But I don't think that necessarily needs to be the case. Like skeuomorphic design in itself isn't 'dated', but the aesthetics chosen can be.
- ghaff 4y ago
  I think if you went back and looked at some of the OS X and, especially, iOS design elements of a decade or so ago you'd probably find some of them pretty dated. Another thing worth observing is that Apple exists as part of essentially the fashion industry which is design. And I don't necessarily wholly blame Apple for all the thin, grey, minimalist design that we see everywhere these days.
  - DRW_ 4y ago
    > I think if you went back and looked at some of the OS X and, especially, iOS design elements of a decade or so ago you'd probably find some of them pretty dated. I mean that's kinda what I was saying in that the aesthetics are dated, but I think the aesthetics chosen are distinct from the concept of 'skeuomorphism', the aesthetics of a particular implementation can be dated, but the idea of skeuomorphic design might not be.
deleted 4y ago
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robocat 4y ago
My mother struggles with her iPad. I presume Apple does usability and discoverability studies with seniors, but clearly they ignore the results. Usability was a sacred goal back in the HIG golden days, but now is sacrificed. If they had a geriatric mode that concentrated on functional UI over form, I would probably use it myself. Here are the most obvious issues (some are Safari specific): * Lack of scroll indicators. If you don’t know you have to scroll, then you are screwed. It doesn’t have to be scrollbars, but there must be some visible indication and/or control so that the need for scrolling up or down in particular is obvious and discoverable. * iPad multiple windows. The usability of this is completely broken. I would also love to disable it for myself, because I don’t use multi-tasking and the UI only ever frustrates me. Horrific UX. * Keyboard focus indication. Watching your mum type into a field, scroll, and not realise the keyboard focus is not where she expects is hella frustrating. Should a field outside the viewport even retain keyboard focus? * <input type=number> completely broken. I have watched my mother type in a number using a comma (because other numbers on the page were displayed with commas) and the UI silently fails. Same with $. I’ve experienced this as a developer - it is just sooooo broken because the field accepts invalid characters but input.value == "" which is fucked. * auto-hiding the tab bar in Safari. Mum opens a hundred tabs. And doesn’t know about the rest of the Safari toolbar. Just leave the chrome visible please. * Hard to Undo. I remember how fucking magical undo was, and still is. Undo is not accessible (although admittedly far far worse on Android). Implicit save is fantastic for most things, but frightening for some settings. System confirmation modals as a workaround are seriously fucking nasty. * The top-right swipe system menu is difficult to learn. Especially for system modal changes (rotation lock, wifi, bluetooth). There are so many complicated things on the iPad that I need to teach my mother, just like Windows of yore. Some of those issues can easily be fixed, if the UI were to be more obvious and less “pretty”. Maybe they could call it “beginners” mode. Like the opposite of a “pro” model or something. While I am being a whinging Englishman, they could fix some bugs too. 4 major iPadOS versions, and I still run into the same fucking bugs every day. I mean, the hardware is great, but why do the same bugs persist forever? Obvious bugs, with many appearing to be very shallow. Maybe hire some devs to fix bugs as their only job?

bogwog 4y ago

I agree, I love skeuomorphic designs even though the common consensus seems to be that it's obsolete/outdated. I guess it's a consequence of the unusually high influence Apple has on the design world. It seems like no matter what Apple decides to do, every single designer will blindly follow them.

bluk 4y ago
I don't know if most people consider skeuomorphic designs obsolete/outdated, but the costs would be far greater today compared to when iOS was only for a handful of different resolutions for the iPhone and iPad. Not only do you have to consider the physical screen size differences with possibly different PPI, but all of the sidebar/split-screen/multi-window modes would require additional work. It's kind of like when most websites started to switch to responsive designs where image heavy layouts and other fun animations kinda dropped off. It was just too costly to make things work well.
- musesum 4y ago
  > when most websites started to switch to responsive designs where image heavy layouts and other fun animations kinda dropped off Yep, things got harder with AutoRotate on the iPad. It took a while to get used to SwiftUI. But the pay off is immediate when switching from Portrait to Landscape mode. Now, everything flows perfectly. Imagine designing for every single kind of device: be it watch, phone, pad, desktop, and TV. It kinda forces you to think differently.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    I think it depends on the level of skeumorphism — a button doesn’t need to be a bitmap a-la Bryce or Kai’s Power Tools or Poser to be skeumorphic, it can be a bevelled rounded rectangle like MacOS 8 or a more complex but still procedurally generated 3D effect of the Aqua UI.
    - musesum 4y ago
      > it can be a bevelled rounded rectangle ok, yeah. Was thinking of the original Notepad, where the frayed yellow tear-off sheet border drove me nuts! Anything tied to the "desktop metaphor" - bits are not atoms
timeon 4y ago
> It seems like no matter what Apple decides to do, every single designer will blindly follow them. While iOS was still skeuomorphic - first app I had that was flat was made by Microsoft. (Photosynth app)
- goosedragons 4y ago
  Yeah I think this flat trend was more started by MS with the Zune HD, Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8. Apple was late to the flat game with iOS 7.

wahnfrieden 4y ago

Nonsense given we are still in flat design territory (a several years refined version of it) unless you really consider the current state remains poison

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

DRW_ 4y ago

I tend to prefer some of the more 'flat' modern designs in many ways, but I do think people are too binary about the skeuomorphic stuff. They could have modernised the design and still kept some of the useful skeuomorphic cues. I think what pushed people away from the skeuomorphic stuff is that it feels like the aesthetics can become to feel dated quicker? But I don't think that necessarily needs to be the case. Like skeuomorphic design in itself isn't 'dated', but the aesthetics chosen can be.

ghaff 4y ago
I think if you went back and looked at some of the OS X and, especially, iOS design elements of a decade or so ago you'd probably find some of them pretty dated. Another thing worth observing is that Apple exists as part of essentially the fashion industry which is design. And I don't necessarily wholly blame Apple for all the thin, grey, minimalist design that we see everywhere these days.
- DRW_ 4y ago
  > I think if you went back and looked at some of the OS X and, especially, iOS design elements of a decade or so ago you'd probably find some of them pretty dated. I mean that's kinda what I was saying in that the aesthetics are dated, but I think the aesthetics chosen are distinct from the concept of 'skeuomorphism', the aesthetics of a particular implementation can be dated, but the idea of skeuomorphic design might not be.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

robocat 4y ago

My mother struggles with her iPad. I presume Apple does usability and discoverability studies with seniors, but clearly they ignore the results. Usability was a sacred goal back in the HIG golden days, but now is sacrificed. If they had a geriatric mode that concentrated on functional UI over form, I would probably use it myself. Here are the most obvious issues (some are Safari specific): * Lack of scroll indicators. If you don’t know you have to scroll, then you are screwed. It doesn’t have to be scrollbars, but there must be some visible indication and/or control so that the need for scrolling up or down in particular is obvious and discoverable. * iPad multiple windows. The usability of this is completely broken. I would also love to disable it for myself, because I don’t use multi-tasking and the UI only ever frustrates me. Horrific UX. * Keyboard focus indication. Watching your mum type into a field, scroll, and not realise the keyboard focus is not where she expects is hella frustrating. Should a field outside the viewport even retain keyboard focus? * <input type=number> completely broken. I have watched my mother type in a number using a comma (because other numbers on the page were displayed with commas) and the UI silently fails. Same with $. I’ve experienced this as a developer - it is just sooooo broken because the field accepts invalid characters but input.value == "" which is fucked. * auto-hiding the tab bar in Safari. Mum opens a hundred tabs. And doesn’t know about the rest of the Safari toolbar. Just leave the chrome visible please. * Hard to Undo. I remember how fucking magical undo was, and still is. Undo is not accessible (although admittedly far far worse on Android). Implicit save is fantastic for most things, but frightening for some settings. System confirmation modals as a workaround are seriously fucking nasty. * The top-right swipe system menu is difficult to learn. Especially for system modal changes (rotation lock, wifi, bluetooth). There are so many complicated things on the iPad that I need to teach my mother, just like Windows of yore. Some of those issues can easily be fixed, if the UI were to be more obvious and less “pretty”. Maybe they could call it “beginners” mode. Like the opposite of a “pro” model or something. While I am being a whinging Englishman, they could fix some bugs too. 4 major iPadOS versions, and I still run into the same fucking bugs every day. I mean, the hardware is great, but why do the same bugs persist forever? Obvious bugs, with many appearing to be very shallow. Maybe hire some devs to fix bugs as their only job?