4 ms·

The issue isn't skeuomorphic vs. flat design. Let's reframe it to be about the inclusion of affordances and constraints. What makes a tool easy and intuitive to

by kyro 14y ago

The issue isn't skeuomorphic vs. flat design. Let's reframe it to be about the inclusion of affordances and constraints. What makes a tool easy and intuitive to use is the careful attention given to both enable and restrict the user from performing a set of actions. When a user clearly sees what he/she can or cannot do, they understand the purpose of what's in front of them. Gradients and dropshadows help with that, but even ignoring these aesthetic qualities, we have a whole host of other concepts to utilize, like consistency, proximity, structural heirarchy, and more conceptual digital analogs of real world entities. Let's compare apples to apples: the iOS home screen to that of Windows. Let's go further and ignore the aesthetic differences, like gradients and dropshadows. What are we left with? The iOS screen has a table of app icons, all consistent in size and alignment. It's easy to see that at the highest level, these are all applications I can access. Let's look at Windows, more specifically the screenshot in the blog post. We see no consistency in size, and further, that grouped set of minicons on the left are of a confused relationship. 3 are music apps, and the fourth looks like maybe text messaging. The iOS apps are laid out in a way where a user can easily tell what is tappable from what is not tappable -- "this is an actionable element in a sea of inactionable whitespace." Contrast this with the billboard-like layout of the Windows Phone UI. You are bombarded with colors and pictures and icons, mere millimeters away from one another, leaving a user in confusion and sensory overload because it's difficult to isolate the various elements. The iOS app screen has an icon and a text label for every single app. The Windows Phone does not. It almost seems like tiles are arbitrarily assigned to be little/big or to have icon-labels/photos. After playing around with a friend's Lumia for some time, I'm still confused when I stare at the screen of a Windows Phone. I'm not trying to spark an Apple vs. Microsoft debate. I'm trying to show that stripped of all gratuitous skeuomorphism and subtle aesthetic qualities, UIs can still be usable given they clarify to the user what they can or cannot do. I could've done the same mini-analysis with an Android home screen compared to a Windows one and Android would've come out on top for many of the same reasons.

NZ_Matt 14y ago
I don't think the tiles in Windows 8 and WP8 are confusing, it's very easy to understand that they all have one function and that is to open an app.
pavlov 14y ago
Contrast this with the billboard-like layout of the Windows Phone UI. You are bombarded with colors and pictures and icons, mere millimeters away from one another, leaving a user in confusion and sensory overload because it's difficult to isolate the various elements. This is true -- but only in the context of a random person put in front of a random Windows Phone device for the first time. However that's a fairly rare occurrence over the lifetime of a highly personal device, and I feel Microsoft has made the right decision in prioritizing personal organization. Tile sizes and placements are indeed "arbitrarily assigned" simply because they're chosen by the user. Anecdotally, everybody I know with a Windows Phone has tinkered with the tile layout. The lack of whitespace is not a problem when you've placed all those items there yourself. The ability to vary tile sizes further improves spatial orientation within the customized screen. (Think of items on your desk -- in order to tell them apart, do you insist that they are all the same size and at least 20 cm away from each other? Probably not, because those items have some other meaning to you than simply "object on my desk"). Another misunderstanding about Windows Phone is the content of the tiles. In screenshots it looks garish to have some tiles in a solid color and others filled with photos. In practice there's a strong consistency at work: any tile that is non-flat is displaying the user's own content. Furthermore these tiles usually also have an element of motion so that the non-flat content is not static. (For example, the People tile shows the user's contacts with varying animations, and the Pictures tile shows the user's photos as a slideshow with smooth panning.)
mattsjohnston5 14y ago
I completely agree with your point here about what the functional purpose of a user interface is. I would also agree that almost all styles of design have the potential to accomplish all the functional goals of an interface, except, perhaps, flat design. Once you've adequately addressed the functional purposes of an interface, you are free as a designer to design it however the heck you want to. Usually the rest of these design decisions should be made through the lens of brand image and how you want your users to feel. The rest of the design process is practically a science (ie how the average person scans a page, perceives content hierarchy, expects certain UI elements to perform certain actions, etc). So the bulk of the truly creative portion of design is subjective, and designers should remember that. Yes, designers are always forced to be creative when solving UX and architecture design challenges, but ultimately the result is not subjective. Your objective goal is to help the most amount of users understand your website and accomplish their goals. When designing the style of your website, you're deciding how to influence people's emotions. An almost flat design like Google's is great for Google (and I truly mean that, I really love their design aesthetic as of late in their apps), but that's not because an almost flat design aesthetic would be great for every website. The almost flat design aesthetic makes me think of digital products, modern companies, and a subtle, friendly personality. This works for Google as it does for many other companies, but it might not work for yours. Find your brand image. Craft your own emotional experience for users that is unique to you and your company. And when you find something you like, don't tell other designers it's better than their styles ;)

by kyro 14y ago

NZ_Matt 14y ago

I don't think the tiles in Windows 8 and WP8 are confusing, it's very easy to understand that they all have one function and that is to open an app.

pavlov 14y ago

Contrast this with the billboard-like layout of the Windows Phone UI. You are bombarded with colors and pictures and icons, mere millimeters away from one another, leaving a user in confusion and sensory overload because it's difficult to isolate the various elements. This is true -- but only in the context of a random person put in front of a random Windows Phone device for the first time. However that's a fairly rare occurrence over the lifetime of a highly personal device, and I feel Microsoft has made the right decision in prioritizing personal organization. Tile sizes and placements are indeed "arbitrarily assigned" simply because they're chosen by the user. Anecdotally, everybody I know with a Windows Phone has tinkered with the tile layout. The lack of whitespace is not a problem when you've placed all those items there yourself. The ability to vary tile sizes further improves spatial orientation within the customized screen. (Think of items on your desk -- in order to tell them apart, do you insist that they are all the same size and at least 20 cm away from each other? Probably not, because those items have some other meaning to you than simply "object on my desk"). Another misunderstanding about Windows Phone is the content of the tiles. In screenshots it looks garish to have some tiles in a solid color and others filled with photos. In practice there's a strong consistency at work: any tile that is non-flat is displaying the user's own content. Furthermore these tiles usually also have an element of motion so that the non-flat content is not static. (For example, the People tile shows the user's contacts with varying animations, and the Pictures tile shows the user's photos as a slideshow with smooth panning.)

mattsjohnston5 14y ago

I completely agree with your point here about what the functional purpose of a user interface is. I would also agree that almost all styles of design have the potential to accomplish all the functional goals of an interface, except, perhaps, flat design. Once you've adequately addressed the functional purposes of an interface, you are free as a designer to design it however the heck you want to. Usually the rest of these design decisions should be made through the lens of brand image and how you want your users to feel. The rest of the design process is practically a science (ie how the average person scans a page, perceives content hierarchy, expects certain UI elements to perform certain actions, etc). So the bulk of the truly creative portion of design is subjective, and designers should remember that. Yes, designers are always forced to be creative when solving UX and architecture design challenges, but ultimately the result is not subjective. Your objective goal is to help the most amount of users understand your website and accomplish their goals. When designing the style of your website, you're deciding how to influence people's emotions. An almost flat design like Google's is great for Google (and I truly mean that, I really love their design aesthetic as of late in their apps), but that's not because an almost flat design aesthetic would be great for every website. The almost flat design aesthetic makes me think of digital products, modern companies, and a subtle, friendly personality. This works for Google as it does for many other companies, but it might not work for yours. Find your brand image. Craft your own emotional experience for users that is unique to you and your company. And when you find something you like, don't tell other designers it's better than their styles ;)