4 ms·

What’s wrong with flat UIs? Skeuomorphic designs have served their purpose of helping people get used to computers, but now that is no longer necessary.

by xigoi 3mo ago

hypfer 3mo ago
[flagged]
- xigoi 3mo ago
  I’m being serious. I find skeuomorphic UIs to be too visually overwhelming compared to flat UIs.
  - hypfer 3mo ago
    That is a valid opinion to hold, however, the question of "what is wrong with X? Y is outdated and over" is a) a different statement from "I prefer X" and b) pretty low effort, trivially to Google (or ask AI) and generally a bit on the ignorant side A better reply would not just have said what it said but contained actual wonder about the topic. Like this, it's just indistinguishable from engagement bait.
    - benj111 3mo ago
      I think you're being overly hostile. The parents question seems reasonable to my non designy mind.
      - hypfer 3mo ago
        Yes in a vacuum. No on the Internet. Especially not on the sea-lion infested HR-world Internet, in which trolling has evolved to exploit good faith directly. ___ In fact, "being overly hostile" is exactly how you probe to see whether your suspicions are correct. Sea lioning exploits the gap between what would be a real human thing to do and what still passes as what a real human would do. So to get useful data, you need to modulate parameters so that people end up outside of that gap window. Essentially you're probing for genuine Human-ness by creating a context in which the bad faith action space is no longer overlapping with the genuine human action space. This works, because genuine humans have this amazing ability to reconcile and actually genuinely resolve misunderstandings. Something that is fundamentally impossible for bad faith actors. (This should not be understood as "just be overly hostile" because simply being a dick doesn't provide any data at all.)
        benj111 3mo ago
        > (This should not be understood as "just be overly hostile" because simply being a dick doesn't provide any data at all.) If you're a dick for a reason, you're still being a dick. (Your word not mine) And I don't see how your approach makes discourse any better. To me the parents question was reasonable. Skeuomorphism was designed for people that may never have seen a computer before. Do we need to still be clicking a floppy disc to save a file? There's probably differences in how you define flat design. You could include all the issues of current implementations in that definition, or you could say that the burger menu is just bad UX and could be fixed without going back to skeuomorphism. But you haven't really delved into that.
        hypfer 3mo ago
        > But you haven't really delved into that. Dude, are you also playing that script or what? Of course you do not engage on the level the possibly malicious party wants you to engage, because if you do that, you play their game by their rules. Have you even tried engaging with what I just said? (inb4 "but you didn't do either!!111") God, this fucking platform. Whatever man. Go have fun being dragged (or dragging others) into never-ending bad-faith arguments.
    - xigoi 3mo ago
      > pretty low effort, trivially to Google (or ask AI) and generally a bit on the ignorant side I know the most common reason why people prefer skeuomorphic design (the visual metaphor), which is why my original reply directly addressed this complaint by saying that it’s no longer relevant. Some other complaints I’ve found online are about specific bad instances of flat design rather than flat designs in general. Therefore, I am asking about reasons that don’t fall under these two categories, which I haven’t been able to find.
      - Retric 3mo ago
        I’ve never seen a single instance of flat design without any significant usability issues. A core issue is UI is a language and by reinventing things from scratch you ended up with some designs choosing A to represent something toggled on, and some designs using A to show the exact opposite. Thus a user needed to interact with that specific design to learn core functionality.
sakjur 3mo ago
If you introduce flatness without also adjusting the colors (or worse, making many backgrounds translucent) you end up with really poor contrast.
Telaneo 3mo ago
New people are born every day.
- xigoi 3mo ago
  The newly born people grow up in a world where computers are already commonplace, so they don’t need to get used to them.
  - Telaneo 3mo ago
    That fact that they are common doesn't mean they don't need to get used to them.
  - sokoloff 3mo ago
    Wild take. They’re not born “used to them,” so at some point they quite literally need to get used to them…
    - xigoi 3mo ago
      The point is that a computer will just be another thing for them to learn, not a replacement for other tools they’ve been using for tens of years. Therefore, the computer does not need to look like those other tools in order to make sense to them.
      - Telaneo 3mo ago
        The fact that the people learning it will be younger is not a reason to make it harder for them to learn. The computer doesn't need to look like other items out there in the world, but it sure is helpful, even if only so you have a reference to explain things from, and so that the iconography is somewhat consistent.
    - TeMPOraL 3mo ago
      Yes, but they'll be doing it between age of 2 and 7, not 20 and 90.
dutchCourage 3mo ago
This is a somewhat unpopular opinion here, however I do think flat UI can be done right and is well fitted to digital UIs. It's possible to have a flat style but have buttons that look clearly like buttons, and elements that have shadows and colors.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  The original GUIs were all flat because that was the default. A button was a rectangle with text in it. A checkbox was a rectangle with or without an X across it. Pure black on pure white, no colors or shades. Windows used this style until Windows 95. Nobody seemed to have a problem with it. It was largely clear what was a button and what was a checkbox. In hindsight it was certainly uglier than the 95 style (maybe just because I grew up with that) but it wasn't unusable at all. As you say, it was clear what was a button, what was a checkbox. I think it was because GUIs were mostly made out of standardized elements whereas today we have everyone trying to put their unique spin on every element.
  - ssl-3 3mo ago
    I might be misunderstanding what you're saying, but: In the PC space, Windows 3.x definitely had some skeuomorphic elements. This presents most-commonly with the minimize and maximize buttons[1]. We have to go all the way back to Windows 2 in before we find flatness. [1]: https://archive.org/details/msdos_win3_1 https://archive.org/details/msdos_win3_1
    - Telaneo 3mo ago
      And Windows 1 and 2 were barely even used. Windows 2 sold less than 2 million copies. Windows 3 and co sold 7-ish million. Windows 95 sold more than 40 million.[1] There's a lot less people to complain about Windows 1 and 2, and those people were probably a lot more experienced in the first place. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220418124401/https://techland.time.com/2013/05/07/a-brief-history-of-windows-sales-figures-1985-present/#:~:text=Windows%20sales%20in%201988%20(Windows,less%20than%202%20million%20(InfoWorld) https://web.archive.org/web/20220418124401/https://techland....
Retric 3mo ago
It’s not that it’s impossible to make a useable flat UI, it’s that people constantly forgot critical functionality. You need to denote a button is different from text. You need feedback that a UI element was interacted with, and for toggles you need for people to be able to tell what represents on vs off. The borders between different UI elements needs to be clearly defined, etc etc.
layer8 3mo ago
It doesn’t just help to “get used to” computers, it continues to help even after being used to computers for decades. The fact that it helps to better recognize and distinguish UI controls from content never stops.

What’s wrong with flat UIs? Skeuomorphic designs have served their purpose of helping people get used to computers, but now that is no longer necessary.

by xigoi 3mo ago

What’s wrong with flat UIs? Skeuomorphic designs have served their purpose of helping people get used to computers, but now that is no longer necessary.

hypfer 3mo ago

[flagged]

xigoi 3mo ago
I’m being serious. I find skeuomorphic UIs to be too visually overwhelming compared to flat UIs.
- hypfer 3mo ago
  That is a valid opinion to hold, however, the question of "what is wrong with X? Y is outdated and over" is a) a different statement from "I prefer X" and b) pretty low effort, trivially to Google (or ask AI) and generally a bit on the ignorant side A better reply would not just have said what it said but contained actual wonder about the topic. Like this, it's just indistinguishable from engagement bait.
  - benj111 3mo ago
    I think you're being overly hostile. The parents question seems reasonable to my non designy mind.
    - hypfer 3mo ago
      Yes in a vacuum. No on the Internet. Especially not on the sea-lion infested HR-world Internet, in which trolling has evolved to exploit good faith directly. ___ In fact, "being overly hostile" is exactly how you probe to see whether your suspicions are correct. Sea lioning exploits the gap between what would be a real human thing to do and what still passes as what a real human would do. So to get useful data, you need to modulate parameters so that people end up outside of that gap window. Essentially you're probing for genuine Human-ness by creating a context in which the bad faith action space is no longer overlapping with the genuine human action space. This works, because genuine humans have this amazing ability to reconcile and actually genuinely resolve misunderstandings. Something that is fundamentally impossible for bad faith actors. (This should not be understood as "just be overly hostile" because simply being a dick doesn't provide any data at all.)
      - benj111 3mo ago
        > (This should not be understood as "just be overly hostile" because simply being a dick doesn't provide any data at all.) If you're a dick for a reason, you're still being a dick. (Your word not mine) And I don't see how your approach makes discourse any better. To me the parents question was reasonable. Skeuomorphism was designed for people that may never have seen a computer before. Do we need to still be clicking a floppy disc to save a file? There's probably differences in how you define flat design. You could include all the issues of current implementations in that definition, or you could say that the burger menu is just bad UX and could be fixed without going back to skeuomorphism. But you haven't really delved into that.
        hypfer 3mo ago
        > But you haven't really delved into that. Dude, are you also playing that script or what? Of course you do not engage on the level the possibly malicious party wants you to engage, because if you do that, you play their game by their rules. Have you even tried engaging with what I just said? (inb4 "but you didn't do either!!111") God, this fucking platform. Whatever man. Go have fun being dragged (or dragging others) into never-ending bad-faith arguments.
  - xigoi 3mo ago
    > pretty low effort, trivially to Google (or ask AI) and generally a bit on the ignorant side I know the most common reason why people prefer skeuomorphic design (the visual metaphor), which is why my original reply directly addressed this complaint by saying that it’s no longer relevant. Some other complaints I’ve found online are about specific bad instances of flat design rather than flat designs in general. Therefore, I am asking about reasons that don’t fall under these two categories, which I haven’t been able to find.
    - Retric 3mo ago
      I’ve never seen a single instance of flat design without any significant usability issues. A core issue is UI is a language and by reinventing things from scratch you ended up with some designs choosing A to represent something toggled on, and some designs using A to show the exact opposite. Thus a user needed to interact with that specific design to learn core functionality.

sakjur 3mo ago

If you introduce flatness without also adjusting the colors (or worse, making many backgrounds translucent) you end up with really poor contrast.

Telaneo 3mo ago

New people are born every day.

xigoi 3mo ago
The newly born people grow up in a world where computers are already commonplace, so they don’t need to get used to them.
- Telaneo 3mo ago
  That fact that they are common doesn't mean they don't need to get used to them.
- sokoloff 3mo ago
  Wild take. They’re not born “used to them,” so at some point they quite literally need to get used to them…
  - xigoi 3mo ago
    The point is that a computer will just be another thing for them to learn, not a replacement for other tools they’ve been using for tens of years. Therefore, the computer does not need to look like those other tools in order to make sense to them.
    - Telaneo 3mo ago
      The fact that the people learning it will be younger is not a reason to make it harder for them to learn. The computer doesn't need to look like other items out there in the world, but it sure is helpful, even if only so you have a reference to explain things from, and so that the iconography is somewhat consistent.
  - TeMPOraL 3mo ago
    Yes, but they'll be doing it between age of 2 and 7, not 20 and 90.

dutchCourage 3mo ago

This is a somewhat unpopular opinion here, however I do think flat UI can be done right and is well fitted to digital UIs. It's possible to have a flat style but have buttons that look clearly like buttons, and elements that have shadows and colors.

inigyou 3mo ago
The original GUIs were all flat because that was the default. A button was a rectangle with text in it. A checkbox was a rectangle with or without an X across it. Pure black on pure white, no colors or shades. Windows used this style until Windows 95. Nobody seemed to have a problem with it. It was largely clear what was a button and what was a checkbox. In hindsight it was certainly uglier than the 95 style (maybe just because I grew up with that) but it wasn't unusable at all. As you say, it was clear what was a button, what was a checkbox. I think it was because GUIs were mostly made out of standardized elements whereas today we have everyone trying to put their unique spin on every element.
- ssl-3 3mo ago
  I might be misunderstanding what you're saying, but: In the PC space, Windows 3.x definitely had some skeuomorphic elements. This presents most-commonly with the minimize and maximize buttons[1]. We have to go all the way back to Windows 2 in before we find flatness. [1]: https://archive.org/details/msdos_win3_1 https://archive.org/details/msdos_win3_1
  - Telaneo 3mo ago
    And Windows 1 and 2 were barely even used. Windows 2 sold less than 2 million copies. Windows 3 and co sold 7-ish million. Windows 95 sold more than 40 million.[1] There's a lot less people to complain about Windows 1 and 2, and those people were probably a lot more experienced in the first place. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220418124401/https://techland.time.com/2013/05/07/a-brief-history-of-windows-sales-figures-1985-present/#:~:text=Windows%20sales%20in%201988%20(Windows,less%20than%202%20million%20(InfoWorld) https://web.archive.org/web/20220418124401/https://techland....

Retric 3mo ago

It’s not that it’s impossible to make a useable flat UI, it’s that people constantly forgot critical functionality. You need to denote a button is different from text. You need feedback that a UI element was interacted with, and for toggles you need for people to be able to tell what represents on vs off. The borders between different UI elements needs to be clearly defined, etc etc.

layer8 3mo ago

It doesn’t just help to “get used to” computers, it continues to help even after being used to computers for decades. The fact that it helps to better recognize and distinguish UI controls from content never stops.