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Repost from OSnews comments: This philosophy of putting consistency on this giant pedestal reminds me of the strict non-expressive philosophy of 60s modernist

Repost from OSnews comments: This philosophy of putting consistency on this giant pedestal reminds me of the strict non-expressive philosophy of 60s modernist graphic design. They use Helvetica for everything, because Helvetica is neutral, believe that type should never be expressive because the meaning is in the content. Today many like the style, but very few share the philosophy that design should not be expressive. Today graphic design is expressive. You can look at a poster and guess the content based on the typeface, colors, texture, etc. I think we are seeing a similar development in the world of UI design. Having the notes app actually sort-of look like handwritten notes gives people visual cues to what this application and makes it easy to understand. I would not be surprised if such visual cues makes the app disappear than a pure consistent app would. These apps are only different visually, in behavior they are often very consistent. You also have apps that take things much futher, such as Convertbot, Clear or Paper. I think breaking UI conventions is completely acceptable if they make the experience better. Personally I find Paper to be far more invisible than the other more consistent sketching-apps for iPad. I think there is more than enough room for both philosophies (and everything between). Vote with your wallet and buy the apps that work well for you.

Someone 14y ago
Additionally, there is the argument that today's users are way more familiar with the language of UIs. Because of that, some bandwidth that used to be necessary to drive home the message "this is what you can do here" can be used for other purposes. And for those wondering about whether that "more familiar" argument has merit: the same has happened in movies. Nowadays, everyone can follow what happens in a movie if, in a scene immediately following one shot in the New York office, a shop owner has a slight French accent. In early movies, such a change required intermediate scenes showing someone taking a cab to the airport (and saying "to the airport" to the driver), getting in a plane, getting out of the plane, etc.
BadLogInMyAss 14y ago
Bunk. This is a functional problem, caused by intentional obscurity. This is a replay of the "skinning" fad of 10 or more years ago, which thankfully died on the desktop. A great example is this ridiculous Clear list-making app for the iPhone that pointlessly eschews listviews and disclosure indicators in favor of... nothing. You're supposed to guess at what to pinch or swipe, and there no visible difference between and individual item and a collection. UI failure.
shashashasha 14y ago
Your point about Helvetica reminds me of this line from a post written today by Armin: "Helvetica is the fixed-gear bike of typefaces: it’s as basic as it gets, but the statement it makes is as complex as anything else." http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_university_of_the_arts_london_logo_or_why_i_hate_helvetica.php http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_univ...
Produce 14y ago
Allow me to explain to you why you're wrong. My computer is my computer. Not Apple's computer when I'm using iTunes (hah, as if I'd ever use that piece of crap, but stay with me here), not Microsoft's when I'm using Windows Media Player, not Google's when I'm using Chrome and not Mozilla's when I'm using Thunderbird. I know what I want my user interface to look like. I know what fonts, colours and relative sizes I want things to be. All in exactly the same way that I know what colour I want the walls to be painted in my home and where I want my furniture. By breaking UI conventions because some idiot thinks that he knows what colours and shapes my monitor should display, I am unable to dictate what my own things should look like. Instead of a designer spending his time on designing a theme for a GUI toolkit and skinning all of the applications on my computer at once, he wastes time on coming up with a visual theme for just one of them. Intelligence 101 - tend towards abstraction as much as possible. This recent trend clearly has it's roots in the idiot depart... ahem, sorry, I mean marketing department where the thinking went something like "but we need to solidify our brand experience by making our application stand out!". Yeah, buddy, yours and everybody elses. Give me my shit back, provide the functionality I'm buying from you and design a nice theme for KDE or Windows if you feel so inclined. To hammer the point in further with another example, CSS was designed with, err, designers in mind and look at what a head-fuck that turned out to be. Leave the thinking to people who know how to think - we'll tell you what needs prettying up and how to do it right. To throw out an idea of how things could be better - why can't GUI toolkits support fluid designs which can be manipulated by central themes? Why can't some people opt for ribbon menus while others use the old drop down menus just by changing a theme? What about if I want all my menus to be ribbon style but in a vertical fashion? Or if I want that list of porn actresses names' to be on the right rather than on the left of the porn database application I use to track my stalking habits? GUI's should adapt to how the individual thinks as opposed to the other way round as it currently is. That is the smart way to do it. This recent trend in UI's and, frankly, many other things, is taking the stupid approach to the problem.
- dubya 14y ago
  If you are that particular about your tools you should consider making them yourself, or using software you can really claim ownership of. iTunes and Chrome are not your software in any meaningful sense. Even less so probably because they are free (gratis). With Mozilla you might have a claim, and I assume you are free to make your own version that has the columns in your preferred order or whatnot. For official support you just have to convince a sufficient number of like-minded programmers that yours is a problem worth solving, and then some minor technical bits like "What determines the central theme?" and "What scripting language shall we standardize on?"

Someone 14y ago

Additionally, there is the argument that today's users are way more familiar with the language of UIs. Because of that, some bandwidth that used to be necessary to drive home the message "this is what you can do here" can be used for other purposes. And for those wondering about whether that "more familiar" argument has merit: the same has happened in movies. Nowadays, everyone can follow what happens in a movie if, in a scene immediately following one shot in the New York office, a shop owner has a slight French accent. In early movies, such a change required intermediate scenes showing someone taking a cab to the airport (and saying "to the airport" to the driver), getting in a plane, getting out of the plane, etc.

BadLogInMyAss 14y ago

Bunk. This is a functional problem, caused by intentional obscurity. This is a replay of the "skinning" fad of 10 or more years ago, which thankfully died on the desktop. A great example is this ridiculous Clear list-making app for the iPhone that pointlessly eschews listviews and disclosure indicators in favor of... nothing. You're supposed to guess at what to pinch or swipe, and there no visible difference between and individual item and a collection. UI failure.

shashashasha 14y ago

Your point about Helvetica reminds me of this line from a post written today by Armin: "Helvetica is the fixed-gear bike of typefaces: it’s as basic as it gets, but the statement it makes is as complex as anything else." http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_university_of_the_arts_london_logo_or_why_i_hate_helvetica.php http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_univ...

Produce 14y ago

Allow me to explain to you why you're wrong. My computer is my computer. Not Apple's computer when I'm using iTunes (hah, as if I'd ever use that piece of crap, but stay with me here), not Microsoft's when I'm using Windows Media Player, not Google's when I'm using Chrome and not Mozilla's when I'm using Thunderbird. I know what I want my user interface to look like. I know what fonts, colours and relative sizes I want things to be. All in exactly the same way that I know what colour I want the walls to be painted in my home and where I want my furniture. By breaking UI conventions because some idiot thinks that he knows what colours and shapes my monitor should display, I am unable to dictate what my own things should look like. Instead of a designer spending his time on designing a theme for a GUI toolkit and skinning all of the applications on my computer at once, he wastes time on coming up with a visual theme for just one of them. Intelligence 101 - tend towards abstraction as much as possible. This recent trend clearly has it's roots in the idiot depart... ahem, sorry, I mean marketing department where the thinking went something like "but we need to solidify our brand experience by making our application stand out!". Yeah, buddy, yours and everybody elses. Give me my shit back, provide the functionality I'm buying from you and design a nice theme for KDE or Windows if you feel so inclined. To hammer the point in further with another example, CSS was designed with, err, designers in mind and look at what a head-fuck that turned out to be. Leave the thinking to people who know how to think - we'll tell you what needs prettying up and how to do it right. To throw out an idea of how things could be better - why can't GUI toolkits support fluid designs which can be manipulated by central themes? Why can't some people opt for ribbon menus while others use the old drop down menus just by changing a theme? What about if I want all my menus to be ribbon style but in a vertical fashion? Or if I want that list of porn actresses names' to be on the right rather than on the left of the porn database application I use to track my stalking habits? GUI's should adapt to how the individual thinks as opposed to the other way round as it currently is. That is the smart way to do it. This recent trend in UI's and, frankly, many other things, is taking the stupid approach to the problem.

dubya 14y ago
If you are that particular about your tools you should consider making them yourself, or using software you can really claim ownership of. iTunes and Chrome are not your software in any meaningful sense. Even less so probably because they are free (gratis). With Mozilla you might have a claim, and I assume you are free to make your own version that has the columns in your preferred order or whatnot. For official support you just have to convince a sufficient number of like-minded programmers that yours is a problem worth solving, and then some minor technical bits like "What determines the central theme?" and "What scripting language shall we standardize on?"