5 ms·

Am I the only one that thinks "flat design" looks bland, unengaging and unoriginal? Are we, on the cutting edge of web trends, going to take our design cues fro

by cbeach 14y ago

Am I the only one that thinks "flat design" looks bland, unengaging and unoriginal? Are we, on the cutting edge of web trends, going to take our design cues from Microsoft's Windows Phone marketing department?

actionscripted 14y ago
(With how many creative people there are doing web work nowadays I'm always amazed that design trends seem to stem from the most recent/popular OS.) What's great about the Metro style is it makes responsive layouts dead-simple and it cuts the design process down considerably. Sure it looks boring, but that's okay for now because I spent years hearing about wet floors and jelly buttons and skeuomorphism and... It's refreshing to be able to pick a few colors, pick a few fonts, put it on a grid and be done. To me it almost feels like laziness, but it's a nice change of pace from the days when a single button took hours to design/build.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  It's still quite easy to mess up a metro UI, you still need a visual/graphics designer that know grid and typography. An undesigned metro UI is actually more obvious than an undesigned iOS UI.
d23 14y ago
Judging by the increased popularity, I'd say that you are at least in the minority. I find that it looks clean, elegant, and attractive.
- PavlovsCat 14y ago
  clean, elegant, and attractive I notice that these are not in contradiction with adjectives that come to my mind first.. such as sterile, pretentious, mediocre, repetetive, heartless. Though now I think I'm kinda projecting properties into "flat design" it might not have, based on the properties I see becoming real hip in people.
- nchlswu 14y ago
  I think you can only conclude that it's popular among trend-following designers... and I guess tech-turned-design-bloggers as well. I'm really curious what the general public's perception is (not that it really matters) and if there are really any functional implications for the way some of the interfaces have been designed.
ankitml 14y ago
simplicity is the ultimate sophistication!
- waterlion 14y ago
  That thought is simple yet unsophisticated.
cooldeal 14y ago
The marketing department markets the phones, it does not design the UI.
- psychometry 14y ago
  That's probably true, but a lot of companies put their "creatives" in the marketing department, especially software companies who don't place enough importance on UI/UX.
waterlion 14y ago
No you're not the only one. UI design suffers from fashion fads as much as any other design-led thing. I think with apps and websites becoming increasingly homogenised and commoditised over the last 15ish years, fashion plays an increasing part. I happen to think it looks ugly and I find it difficult to use (seriously I find using Windows Server 2012 incredibly difficult to navigate visually). I think these flat UI sites look unsophisticated and badly designed. They remind me of 1990-era user interfaces, and not in a good way. But that's just my opinion.
asimov42 14y ago
Where can I find alternative design styles and what would they be called? Gradient based?
ctdonath 14y ago
It's the natural result of removing all unnecessary/uninformative decoration from the interface. Form follows function. What's missing? What other more appealing, and non-gratuitous/extraneous, forms may follow the function?
- ephemeralism 14y ago
  Form follows function doesn't have to result in minimalism or flatness. Gradients, drop shadows, bevels and other 3D effects function as visual cues, and can help a user figure out the hierarchy, order and function of elements in a 2D design. They're not extraneous, at least not when used properly.
  - ctdonath 14y ago
    The added information (depth, angles, shapes) don't contribute to the information being conveyed beyond a simple color change. Takes a lot more effort (however fast or cheap) to draw and perceive such effects than flat geometry. The audience may have spare mental cycles to throw at processing such info, but don't make them do so.
alan_cx 14y ago
Don't agree with the poke at MS, to me its another area that has deliberately gone backwards, or looped back. Miracle of TV being broadcast invisible over air, then we start putting cables everywhere. Terminals and servers evolved to desktops, and now we go back to servers, or "Cloud". We had a Space Shuttle which was reusable and was plane like, now we ditch that and go back to olde skool rockets. Now this web design style, which to me throws out everything we were taught about usability, etc in the past. No, not precise exact parallels, not with out good reason either, but to me its a broad, vague pattern. We seem to eventually loop everything backwards eventually. Not saying this is wrong or bad, it just seems like what "we" do. Its sort of like music revivals, fashion revivals, or TV show remakes. Look out for building block sized phones and black and white TVs in the future!!! Oh, hang on. Phones... Used to get smaller and smaller, now smart phones are huge. There you go, another one!!!!

by cbeach 14y ago

actionscripted 14y ago

(With how many creative people there are doing web work nowadays I'm always amazed that design trends seem to stem from the most recent/popular OS.) What's great about the Metro style is it makes responsive layouts dead-simple and it cuts the design process down considerably. Sure it looks boring, but that's okay for now because I spent years hearing about wet floors and jelly buttons and skeuomorphism and... It's refreshing to be able to pick a few colors, pick a few fonts, put it on a grid and be done. To me it almost feels like laziness, but it's a nice change of pace from the days when a single button took hours to design/build.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago
It's still quite easy to mess up a metro UI, you still need a visual/graphics designer that know grid and typography. An undesigned metro UI is actually more obvious than an undesigned iOS UI.

d23 14y ago

Judging by the increased popularity, I'd say that you are at least in the minority. I find that it looks clean, elegant, and attractive.

PavlovsCat 14y ago
clean, elegant, and attractive I notice that these are not in contradiction with adjectives that come to my mind first.. such as sterile, pretentious, mediocre, repetetive, heartless. Though now I think I'm kinda projecting properties into "flat design" it might not have, based on the properties I see becoming real hip in people.
nchlswu 14y ago
I think you can only conclude that it's popular among trend-following designers... and I guess tech-turned-design-bloggers as well. I'm really curious what the general public's perception is (not that it really matters) and if there are really any functional implications for the way some of the interfaces have been designed.

ankitml 14y ago

simplicity is the ultimate sophistication!

waterlion 14y ago
That thought is simple yet unsophisticated.

cooldeal 14y ago

The marketing department markets the phones, it does not design the UI.

psychometry 14y ago
That's probably true, but a lot of companies put their "creatives" in the marketing department, especially software companies who don't place enough importance on UI/UX.

waterlion 14y ago

No you're not the only one. UI design suffers from fashion fads as much as any other design-led thing. I think with apps and websites becoming increasingly homogenised and commoditised over the last 15ish years, fashion plays an increasing part. I happen to think it looks ugly and I find it difficult to use (seriously I find using Windows Server 2012 incredibly difficult to navigate visually). I think these flat UI sites look unsophisticated and badly designed. They remind me of 1990-era user interfaces, and not in a good way. But that's just my opinion.

asimov42 14y ago

Where can I find alternative design styles and what would they be called? Gradient based?

ctdonath 14y ago

It's the natural result of removing all unnecessary/uninformative decoration from the interface. Form follows function. What's missing? What other more appealing, and non-gratuitous/extraneous, forms may follow the function?

ephemeralism 14y ago
Form follows function doesn't have to result in minimalism or flatness. Gradients, drop shadows, bevels and other 3D effects function as visual cues, and can help a user figure out the hierarchy, order and function of elements in a 2D design. They're not extraneous, at least not when used properly.
- ctdonath 14y ago
  The added information (depth, angles, shapes) don't contribute to the information being conveyed beyond a simple color change. Takes a lot more effort (however fast or cheap) to draw and perceive such effects than flat geometry. The audience may have spare mental cycles to throw at processing such info, but don't make them do so.

alan_cx 14y ago

Don't agree with the poke at MS, to me its another area that has deliberately gone backwards, or looped back. Miracle of TV being broadcast invisible over air, then we start putting cables everywhere. Terminals and servers evolved to desktops, and now we go back to servers, or "Cloud". We had a Space Shuttle which was reusable and was plane like, now we ditch that and go back to olde skool rockets. Now this web design style, which to me throws out everything we were taught about usability, etc in the past. No, not precise exact parallels, not with out good reason either, but to me its a broad, vague pattern. We seem to eventually loop everything backwards eventually. Not saying this is wrong or bad, it just seems like what "we" do. Its sort of like music revivals, fashion revivals, or TV show remakes. Look out for building block sized phones and black and white TVs in the future!!! Oh, hang on. Phones... Used to get smaller and smaller, now smart phones are huge. There you go, another one!!!!