4 ms·

This is what early internet thought "the future" looks like for the web. I am wondering why there isn't design diversity (not using the sociological meaning of

This is what early internet thought "the future" looks like for the web. I am wondering why there isn't design diversity (not using the sociological meaning of the word here) for forward-looking web technologies? Somehow the conversation typically centers around AR/VR or inserting crypto into everything. VisionOS is stereotypically "clean and modern". Web design in general seems so derivative and uninspired, which is strange given that a web page is the main point of interaction for most people.

hbn 3y ago
If we were speculating what UIs will look like in the future and came up with something good, why wouldn't we just do them right now? As soon as you do it's inherently no longer "the future."
- aikinai 3y ago
  UI isn’t just a theme. I can imagine a lot of different UI paradigms that either aren’t possible today or just aren’t practically feasible given development constraints.
  - aquajet 3y ago
    examples?
    - bbor 3y ago
      Minority Report and iron man I are the classic examples, IMO. Interactive holograms, 3D immersion, etc. can’t wait for this era!! Coming soon, it seems (with the “giant heavy headset” caveat)
      - djbusby 3y ago
        Just need web-commected holo-projectors
      - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
        I think the Minority Report ui is technically possible but you might need an OS level rewrite to handle it, Iron Man is pretty much regular sized light headset although with voice activated controls that work!
      - zestyping 3y ago
        Unfortunately, it turns out that waving your hands in the air for long periods of time is exhausting. UIs that look great in movies sometimes aren't practical in real life. https://odannyboy.medium.com/why-you-want-but-wont-like-a-minority-report-style-interface-626d0fd6096b https://odannyboy.medium.com/why-you-want-but-wont-like-a-mi...
pndy 3y ago
> This is what early internet thought "the future" looks like for the web And years later we got mobile-style interfaces and designs that are present on almost every device we interact with. Big elements where sometimes it's impossible to tell the state or even distinguish link from informative text - things which are often utilized in dark patterns tactics Arwes feels pretty well done but rather from a period somewhere between 2005 and 2012, rather than "the future" but it is ofc done in a futuristic style
waboremo 3y ago
There is design diversity, but you're just not going to find it on mainstream sites or apps because they're catering to the everyman. When that occurs, you're tossing away novelty for a sense of expectation. Much in the same way you can find a variety of art but the majority that gets attention are hyper-realistic works. It's just easier to understand for the everyman.
ativzzz 3y ago
> I am wondering why there isn't design diversity Because it doesn't serve much practical purpose. Uniquely designed websites take much more effort (and cash for companies) to create, and they look cool, but they are much harder to use for the average user It's fine for things like advertisements - I've never gone the website for a movie but I imagine this is what those websites should try to be. Is it worth the effort? If you're trying to make a website people use it's not worth it
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  much harder to use for the average user Games use sci-fi looking interfaces all the time and ime they're significantly more intuitive than most business software.
  - detaro 3y ago
    I don't think the sci-fi looking part is helping that though.
mike_hearn 3y ago
Flash died and there wasn't much of a replacement tool. Timeline oriented vector graphics are great for designers but hard to do well with raw HTML.
rafark 3y ago
When flat design started to become a thing I was very excited. It was beautiful. But then EVERYTHING became flat and now I’m extremely bored. Just recently I started using reddit and stumbled upon the old version of the site. Look at this subreddit, it’s absolutely gorgeous and goes very well with the theme of the discussions: https://old.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/ https://old.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/
jtolmar 3y ago
A lot of alternative visual designs run into problems with the technical realities of modern UI tooling. I'm going to talk about web tech, but Android layout works largely the same, last I checked (one trillion years ago, to be fair). The futuristic UI look that Arwes is doing comes with a whole lot of animation, which is very cumbersome on the web. The CSS transition property is good, but it works on a very narrow range of properties, and anything involving inserting/deleting/adding elements needs a whole song and dance to trigger the animation then go clean it up when it's done. You can do it, but it's a whole lot of extra work. Most other stylized looks involve big chonky stylized borders and background graphics. But we generally want the same style to work on mobile, and the chonkier your borders, the harder it is to cram it into reduced space. (Also CSS still doesn't have native 9-patches for some absurd reason. It used to be how everything was done, until the world agreed to stop abusing tables.) Meanwhile the modern flat look is easy to implement in CSS and doesn't have any trouble scaling down to mobile. And it's still a good enough look, it'd even be kind of striking if it wasn't ubiquitous.
rchaud 3y ago
> Web design in general seems so derivative and uninspired The people paid to make websites have instructions to build them for the broadest audience possible. Websites are commodities first. You wouldn't expect a pamphlet at the doctor's office to have a particularly avant-garde design. Now that doesn't mean that we can't have more design variety for websites. But unfortunately, websites are not seen in the same way as other forms of art like video games or movies, where veering from the norm is encouraged. Additionally, the death of Flash and GUI-based web tooling in general means that the people capable of building complex designs like this have formal training in writing code. And people like that usually are not building sites for novelty use cases.

hbn 3y ago

If we were speculating what UIs will look like in the future and came up with something good, why wouldn't we just do them right now? As soon as you do it's inherently no longer "the future."

aikinai 3y ago
UI isn’t just a theme. I can imagine a lot of different UI paradigms that either aren’t possible today or just aren’t practically feasible given development constraints.
- aquajet 3y ago
  examples?
  - bbor 3y ago
    Minority Report and iron man I are the classic examples, IMO. Interactive holograms, 3D immersion, etc. can’t wait for this era!! Coming soon, it seems (with the “giant heavy headset” caveat)
    - djbusby 3y ago
      Just need web-commected holo-projectors
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      I think the Minority Report ui is technically possible but you might need an OS level rewrite to handle it, Iron Man is pretty much regular sized light headset although with voice activated controls that work!
    - zestyping 3y ago
      Unfortunately, it turns out that waving your hands in the air for long periods of time is exhausting. UIs that look great in movies sometimes aren't practical in real life. https://odannyboy.medium.com/why-you-want-but-wont-like-a-minority-report-style-interface-626d0fd6096b https://odannyboy.medium.com/why-you-want-but-wont-like-a-mi...

pndy 3y ago

> This is what early internet thought "the future" looks like for the web And years later we got mobile-style interfaces and designs that are present on almost every device we interact with. Big elements where sometimes it's impossible to tell the state or even distinguish link from informative text - things which are often utilized in dark patterns tactics Arwes feels pretty well done but rather from a period somewhere between 2005 and 2012, rather than "the future" but it is ofc done in a futuristic style

waboremo 3y ago

There is design diversity, but you're just not going to find it on mainstream sites or apps because they're catering to the everyman. When that occurs, you're tossing away novelty for a sense of expectation. Much in the same way you can find a variety of art but the majority that gets attention are hyper-realistic works. It's just easier to understand for the everyman.

ativzzz 3y ago

> I am wondering why there isn't design diversity Because it doesn't serve much practical purpose. Uniquely designed websites take much more effort (and cash for companies) to create, and they look cool, but they are much harder to use for the average user It's fine for things like advertisements - I've never gone the website for a movie but I imagine this is what those websites should try to be. Is it worth the effort? If you're trying to make a website people use it's not worth it

anigbrowl 3y ago
much harder to use for the average user Games use sci-fi looking interfaces all the time and ime they're significantly more intuitive than most business software.
- detaro 3y ago
  I don't think the sci-fi looking part is helping that though.

mike_hearn 3y ago

Flash died and there wasn't much of a replacement tool. Timeline oriented vector graphics are great for designers but hard to do well with raw HTML.

rafark 3y ago

When flat design started to become a thing I was very excited. It was beautiful. But then EVERYTHING became flat and now I’m extremely bored. Just recently I started using reddit and stumbled upon the old version of the site. Look at this subreddit, it’s absolutely gorgeous and goes very well with the theme of the discussions: https://old.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/ https://old.reddit.com/r/gameofthrones/

jtolmar 3y ago

A lot of alternative visual designs run into problems with the technical realities of modern UI tooling. I'm going to talk about web tech, but Android layout works largely the same, last I checked (one trillion years ago, to be fair). The futuristic UI look that Arwes is doing comes with a whole lot of animation, which is very cumbersome on the web. The CSS transition property is good, but it works on a very narrow range of properties, and anything involving inserting/deleting/adding elements needs a whole song and dance to trigger the animation then go clean it up when it's done. You can do it, but it's a whole lot of extra work. Most other stylized looks involve big chonky stylized borders and background graphics. But we generally want the same style to work on mobile, and the chonkier your borders, the harder it is to cram it into reduced space. (Also CSS still doesn't have native 9-patches for some absurd reason. It used to be how everything was done, until the world agreed to stop abusing tables.) Meanwhile the modern flat look is easy to implement in CSS and doesn't have any trouble scaling down to mobile. And it's still a good enough look, it'd even be kind of striking if it wasn't ubiquitous.

rchaud 3y ago

> Web design in general seems so derivative and uninspired The people paid to make websites have instructions to build them for the broadest audience possible. Websites are commodities first. You wouldn't expect a pamphlet at the doctor's office to have a particularly avant-garde design. Now that doesn't mean that we can't have more design variety for websites. But unfortunately, websites are not seen in the same way as other forms of art like video games or movies, where veering from the norm is encouraged. Additionally, the death of Flash and GUI-based web tooling in general means that the people capable of building complex designs like this have formal training in writing code. And people like that usually are not building sites for novelty use cases.