8 ms·

Top designers react to Google’s new ‘Material’ design language

158 points by harrisonweber 12y ago

Someone1234 12y ago
The death of flat/minimalism cannot come soon enough. Unfortunately Google Maps seems to have been swallowed up by it. The current (new?) UI is simply unusable. All I wanted to do earlier was drop the pin at my current location (which Google Maps couldn't divine due to no GPS) and then "Search Nearby" for eating places. Well the pin has gone and now all you get is the street view thingy (yay?) and search nearby is also absent unless you're on a GPS device which can pinpoint your location. I tried to use Bing Maps but they have been copying Google Maps too closely therefore have also removed the droppable pin (?).
- hhsnopek 12y ago
  I don't know what you see - I think the new Google Maps is wonderful. Download the are of the map your most in for offline usage. You can also just click on the spot you want to go and it gives you a details about it under the search bar. I don't use Street View at all, takes a little bit longer to load, instead I just use the flat colored map. Embrace the change or be let in the dust of old technology - I see a wonderful new UI that will attract more users and allow other to easily use Google Maps and other products. They have brought a new touch that Apple holds all of the time.
  - ewoodrich 12y ago
    I mostly agree, but I've found many Google UI changes to be lacking in terms of discoverability. On both Android and web apps I've been baffled by icons and buttons with no hints or explanation. Through trial and error I'm generally able to grok the new conventions, but I still get frustrated initially when presented with opaque symbology.
    - alttab 12y ago
      I hate the hidden swipe features. If there is no UI space for it, I'm not literally going to click and swipe around to "discover" shit. using an app, I dont want to have to discover, I want to easily be able to find what I'm looking for. Swiping between map results at the bottom of the new maps was completely unintuitive for me. I was still pinch zooming and clicking on individual results on the map. To "teach" me, they overlayed instructions on the search results, which was really frustrating when I was trying to read it.
      - eric_the_read 12y ago
        I had no idea you could swipe between map results! Wow. Talk about undiscoverable; if they had overlayed instructions for me (which they probably did), I probably just dismissed them without reading because I was trying to find my results.
        alttab 12y ago
        Yup!
    - oftenwrong 12y ago
      Google seems to love using those "mystery meat icons". They should always include a setting for text labels on clickables. Being able to long press or hover for a tooltip would also be a welcomed addition.
      - myko 12y ago
        > Being able to long press or hover for a tooltip would also be a welcomed addition. This is standard for Android ActionBar icons already. If the icon is custom the developer needs only to set the: android:title property of the item and the long press will display the title and/or read it to the user depending on accessibility settings.
  - alttab 12y ago
    Things I've hated the most about it so far: - It trying to introduce me to hidden gestures for "see more results!" when I'm driving. Sorry guys, using maps is not really the time for a tutorial, I'm in the middle of a task! - Re-routing. The new maps seems to re-route me, more often, and more often incorrectly, than the old maps did. - It also gives me different route results on my Glass than on my Phone. WTF?
  - gone35 12y ago
    I don't know what you see - I think the new Google Maps is wonderful. (...) I see a wonderful new UI that will attract more users and allow other to easily use Google Maps and other products. Sure; to each their own and "wonderful" is a subjective notion, but it is a fact that the new Google Maps hid/removed functionality from the main screen [1]. It is also a fact that these design choices in effect force users to learn longer workflows/roundabouts for less functionality than before. And it is also a fact that some users are opting out as a result. The tractable question then is whether the improved use cases you cite are so "wonderful" and valuable for a large enough set of users, they are worth the collateral damage imposed upon the broader userbase. [1] http://www.digital-geography.com/short-announce-the-new-google-maps-a-comparison/ http://www.digital-geography.com/short-announce-the-new-goog...
- matchu 12y ago
  It's not clear to me that flatness and the removal of the pin feature are related. It's very feasible to develop a pin-like icon that fits the current Maps design; the pin was probably dropped (heh) for other reasons.
- eco 12y ago
  There is no need to use Search Nearby anymore. Search just searches near whatever you are looking at.
  - awj 12y ago
    > Search just searches near whatever you are looking at. ...except for those times where it doesn't, and instead decides to return only the closest result for something. This is especially problematic for regional stores that have multiple locations. If I'm near one but want to meet someone at another Google apparently wants me to go to the close one and ask them for an address.
- kevinwang 12y ago
  What do you prefer to flat/minimalism?
- lloeki 12y ago
  > All I wanted to do earlier was drop the pin at my current location (which Google Maps couldn't divine due to no GPS) and then "Search Nearby" for eating places. /me goes to maps.google.com clicks on a random area of the map a "location" card pops up with lat/long and estimated name clicks on the card to validate the location a second card pops up below with a street view shot, "photos", "explore this area" with "search nearby" and "getting around" with traffic and travel options a third "quick facts" card is slid below clicks on "search nearby" and types "restaurants" Also possible: type "restaurants near whatever", or simply "restaurants", which scopes the request on the current viewport. Seriously.
  - nemetroid 12y ago
    This discussion refers to the redesigned Android app. > Also possible: type "restaurants near whatever", or simply "restaurants", which scopes the request on the current viewport. This appears to work in the app as well, though.
Tsutsukakushi 12y ago
Google is the first big player to do flatness well imo.
- psbp 12y ago
  I remember thinking that Apple would introduce "ink"-like effects at some point after seeing their new design in iOS 7. I'm surprised that Google did it first, and actually did a great job with it.
Alupis 12y ago
Maybe I'm nit-picking... but "Material" is not a language... it's a design guideline. (the article, and the articles the article link to repeatedly call it a language when it's not)
- dag11 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_language
  - Alupis 12y ago
    I stand corrected. Seems wrong, but hey, I'm a programmer... not a designer ;-P
    - deleted 12y ago
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    - alphapapa 12y ago
      Don't drink the koolaid, man. You were right the first time. Calling it a "design language" is their way of obfuscating what they do, making it sound like it's something that only they can do. Therefore you, a mere programmer, should listen to them and do what they tell you, because you aren't qualified to "design" things. Hey, you didn't even know what a design language is! I think we are witnessing the collision between two worlds: art and engineering. People that would have been designing books and magazines and advertisements and refrigerator facades a few years ago are now applying the same techniques to computer interfaces. They're actually trying to stake out their claim to this relatively young field, and they use their own jargon and obfuscated ideas to discourage non-designers from getting involved. This is a problem because software interfaces are tools, not works of art that merely exist to be gazed upon. They should first be engineered, then made to look pretty. There is a reason you can walk into many places of business and see computer terminals with text-mode UIs, even monochrome ones: because they work and are efficient. Now those same interfaces could be made to look nicer by using high-res, color screens with nice widgets, without changing how they work--but hand that task to a designer and watch him pull back in disgust. No, it's got to look like a piece of modern, minimalist art, and all usable controls must be hidden away so as not to "distract" the user from what he "should be focusing on." The average person who just wants a phone he can talk to people with and get directions with is left to suffer in bewilderment as he drowns in a river of constant, unnecessary changes. Every few weeks an app he uses suddenly looks and behaves differently--usually right when the person needs to use it for something, not relearn how to use it. This person is the collateral damage as the two worlds collide and deposit their flaming debris on the peasants below who can only take what they are given and try to fumble through.
pervycreeper 12y ago
So much wasted space. Looks like any random "responsive design" website.
luke_s 12y ago
I think that material is great design, but terrible strategy and in the end may land up resulting in the Android design space being worse, not better. For years google (and many members of the design community) made a very successful argument that android apps should look and act like android apps, and iOS apps should look and act like iOS apps and web apps should act like web apps. Trying to achieve design consistency across platforms was going to annoy your users. Instead you should strive for _branding_ consistency across platforms and use native interaction patterns. A significant problem for Android has been iOS designs just copied over without adapting to the platform. The apps look and feel weird. As a user I find them confusing and frustrating to use. However progress was being made and people were starting to understand that if you want to build for Android you are going to need to design for Android. Material throws that out the window. It says it right there in the goals[1]: "Develop a single underlying system that allows for a unified experience across platforms and device sizes." IF we take it as given that our apps should look the same on all platforms, then why choose Material? Because I know my customers are going to say: "We have this great iOS design sitting right here, that we have already paid to have built. Lets use that! Besides we don't want to re-code our iOS app to suit Android". Or, they will come up with their own cross platform design to "differentiate themselves" and stand out. [1] - http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introduction.html#introduction-goals http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introducti...
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- tesseract 12y ago
  I read "platforms" in that sentence as the different Google platforms: Android on phones, Android on tablets, TV, Chrome, etc.
  - luke_s 12y ago
    Hmmm, funny I read it as the web, iOS and Android. I guess because google already uses their own look and feel for their iOS applications. Though typically I disagree with what he has to say John Gruber of daring fireball seems to think the same way I do: "If there’s a hitch, it’s that Google seems to be promoting this as a cross-platform design framework — a way to design just one interface for both iOS and Android. Google’s own apps for iOS already feel like weird moon man apps; now they’re encouraging third-party developers to follow their style rather than iOS’s." http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/06/25/google-design http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/06/25/google-design
plg 12y ago
I sort of like the design. Too bad google's business model is still offensive though. At least with iOS I know the deal is: I give Apple money, they give me a widget. With Google the deal is they give me services, I give them ... gobs of information.
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interpol_p 12y ago
One of the things I noticed about Google's design demos was that they looked very bespoke. Each app had some really cool but very custom animations. (For example the play button in the music app jumping out and filling a rect with an animated circular fill.) How have their APIs improved to allow developers to easily animate things in the way they demonstrated? It's great to have a strong design direction, but providing the APIs to make it easy to realise that design is just as important.
- luke_s 12y ago
  Well, Disclaimer: I haven't actually used the API's. However on paper they look quite good: http://developer.android.com/preview/material/animations.html http://developer.android.com/preview/material/animations.htm... For example the play button jumping out would probably be a single call to ViewAnimationUtils.createCircularReveal() One of the problems with the old Holo design language was that people were doing great things with it, but much of it had to be custom made. The API's simply weren't meant to be stretched and pulled in the directions people were going. At the moment it appears that this is one of the major problems Material is addressing.
  - interpol_p 12y ago
    That's excellent to see, thanks for finding that.
- deleted 12y ago
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- higherpurpose 12y ago
  From what I gathered from all the material design videos (they have a handful of them on Youtube), they're providing everything to do what they did.
scotty79 12y ago
I thought it was going to be one of those videos that show people's horror and disgust at what they are shown.
ape4 12y ago
The Emperor has no clothes. I hate huge swatches of solid color that doesn't mean anything.
aashishkoirala 12y ago
The first two reactions politely say that they essentially ripped off Windows, don't they?
- aashishkoirala 12y ago
  Wow that was a speedy downvote. It's almost as if someone's got their finger on the trigger constantly. Stressed much?
  - CmonDev 12y ago
    You are not supposed to just go and say "The king is naked". Just politely say "iOS 7-8 and Android L are a nice spin on Microsoft's Modern GUI ideas".
currysausage 12y ago
Not directly related to Material, but to Android L: I always thought that the battery/antenna icons in the taskbar are way too bulky, which becomes more annoying as everything else on the UI is becoming thinner and thinner. Actually, I think this might be of the most noticeable design flaws in Android 4. I'm surprised that they didn't fix this in L, which seems very polished otherwise, and surprised that nobody seems to have mentioned that yet. Edit: Look at this screenshot/mockup: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/google-material2.png http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/google-materi... - Battery and antenna certainly aren't the pieces of information we want the user to focus on, yet they really stand out simply because they are so bulky, at least compared to the other UI elements. Edit 2: The screenshot also shows one of the things I like most about Material/L: Text elements are finally neatly aligned. Randomly aligned text elements are among my top pet peeves.
- alphapapa 12y ago
  Your comment is an example of everything that's wrong with software and UI design today. > Battery and antenna certainly aren't the pieces of information we want the user to focus on... Stop telling me what I should be focusing on! Stop acting as if a simple icon is reaching out of the screen and dragging my eyeballs toward it, like I have to be protected from this horrible, "distracting" icon by sanding away all of its distinctiveness and making it blur into the background, making it useless! When I need to know what my battery charge is, or what my signal strength is, I look at the icons, and they need to be distinct and clear! When I'm finished doing that, guess what--I don't look at them, and they are not a problem! It's not as if the stock Android battery and antenna icons are flashing and twirling around! Stop it with this minimalist dogma! It's madness, and these self-appointed design "experts" are dragging the whole industry down with them in their mindless pursuit of blandness and their personal ideal of beauty--which they put upon an altar and worship, while ignoring usefulness! A cell phone's screen is not a fashion statement, nor a work of art! It's a tool!
  - randomfool 12y ago
    The battery/antenna definitely do not irk me like the original, but I have to agree that in the screenshot linked, the size and color of these passive information icons are extremely similar to that of the interactive 'edit', 'back' and vertical '...' icons. I'm not a visual or UX designer and don't have an answer, but these seem like two different categories of icons which could warrant alternate presentations.
derengel 12y ago
So I'm confused about this since google also has https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/ https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/ , how are they different or relate?
- mynameisvlad 12y ago
  They're completely different. Web Fundamentals are good practices for web development, things like how to make a responsive page and what that means, etc., while Material is a guide and common elements for good mobile and web design. A company can have several guides and guidelines on similar topics.
emehrkay 12y ago
I've always felt that iOS was more polished than android and couldn't quite explain why. Here is an example: open up mail in iOS and go to an inbox. Open up a message and slowing do the swipe right thing to bring in the previous screen. Look at the headings and how they move and fade into each other. The current Android doesnt have that little granular level of detail. Material does. I think it is exciting and it makes me want to design something
greggman 12y ago
I don't know if the Android camera app is considered to use "Material" but it's massively unintuitive to use. It's not obvious at all that to see a picture you just took you need to swipe to the left. Nor is it obvious that the small shutter icon once you have swiped means "edit" or "refocus" or whatever. Google's opinion seems to be "It doesn't have to be intuitive because you'll eventually learn it".
- MaxDPS 12y ago
  After you take a picture you can see that the picture is "stored" to the right. There is a little animation showing where the picture is going. I dont think its as hard to figure out as you are implying.
  - greggman 12y ago
    I know it's hard because I'm actually an iOS user who happens to own a Nexus 5. I only use the Nexus 5 for testing. About once a month I pull it out to show someone the re-focus feature. It almost always takes me several minutes to figure out where it is. Finding the camera app is easy. Figuring out how to get to that feature is hard.
rdtsc 12y ago
I like it! I am not a designer, just a user of Android and this looks good. I just never liked or bought the complete flatness idea. Maybe I am too brainwashed by skeumorphic buttons shadows and whatnot. But we just don't live in the 2D world, the world is 3D and shadows, textures, depths help us interact with the real world (it is there without anyone explicitly adding it in, as in objects in the world are inherently 3D). This is sort of the middle ground. I think the pendulum has swung too far with the Windows and Metro design (and I do commend MS for being bold and going for it, that was fantastic I think). But now I think the pendulum has swung slightly back to a little more skeumorphic design, a little more shadows here and there, use some basic textures. Still flat not fake 3D buttons that look like ancient light switches but paper -- something in between. I can't wait to see more.
- petilon 12y ago
  Agreed. Here's an article that explains this reasoning in more detail: http://blog.tobiasandtobias.com/post/37179466962/in-defense-of-allegorical-design http://blog.tobiasandtobias.com/post/37179466962/in-defense-... Excerpt: Even ‘digital natives’ live in the physical world. We start learning how it works before we ever touch a computer, and even the most dedicated nerd spends more time interacting with physical objects than with digital interfaces. It doesn’t take additional learning to know that an object casting a shadow on another is in front of that other, for example. Failing to leverage that existing knowledge is tantamount to shutting down whole swathes of users’ brains.
Illniyar 12y ago
Not a single negative reaction? that seems weird, surely there should be dissenting voices, what do they say?
gurkendoktor 12y ago
The best thing I can say about iOS 7 is that the information density is still tolerable. Now look at the Material address book screenshot... :|
yannis 12y ago
Certainly they can do better explaining the "design language". Cliches and corporate lingua such as: "... A material metaphor is the unifying theory of a rationalized space and a system of motion. Our material is grounded in tactile reality, inspired by our study of paper and ink, yet open to imagination and magic". Come again?
- deleted 12y ago
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bane 12y ago
I'm guessing some of the weird explanation used to describe the new design language is some of the design world's terms of art bleeding out into layman-land where it sounds ridiculous, but may be full of meaning inside the design world. It reminds me of this http://adage.com/images/random/0209/pepsi-arnell021109.pdf http://adage.com/images/random/0209/pepsi-arnell021109.pdf which, while full of similar sounding "nonsense" nevertheless became Pepsi's new design.
- dhruvmittal 12y ago
  While I'm sure that was all super meaningful to actual designers, that was probably the funniest thing I've read all week. Particularly page 21's "magnetic dynamics."
petilon 12y ago
Flat UI leads to usability problems. For example see Nielsen Norman group's report on Windows 8 usability: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-usability/ http://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-usab... Or read this site for iOS 7 issues: http://uxcritique.tumblr.com/ http://uxcritique.tumblr.com/ Now Google is acknowledging this deficiency of Flat design. See: http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/design/material-design.pdf http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/... They have a page titled "Dimensionality affords interaction." Google is bringing back some dimensionality because a pure flat UI is harder to figure out.
CmonDev 12y ago
"Some elements, like containers, feel almost like a direct copy of Windows UI, to be completely honest." "I initially thought about Windows’ Metro design upon seeing the new UI, but it looks like they have added their own spin on it." I am glad people are giving Microsoft a well deserved credit. And to think Google's top designer was bashing Metro in past. Now we just need Jonny Ive to confess.

158 points by harrisonweber 12y ago

The death of flat/minimalism cannot come soon enough. Unfortunately Google Maps seems to have been swallowed up by it. The current (new?) UI is simply unusable. All I wanted to do earlier was drop the pin at my current location (which Google Maps couldn't divine due to no GPS) and then "Search Nearby" for eating places. Well the pin has gone and now all you get is the street view thingy (yay?) and search nearby is also absent unless you're on a GPS device which can pinpoint your location. I tried to use Bing Maps but they have been copying Google Maps too closely therefore have also removed the droppable pin (?).

hhsnopek 12y ago
I don't know what you see - I think the new Google Maps is wonderful. Download the are of the map your most in for offline usage. You can also just click on the spot you want to go and it gives you a details about it under the search bar. I don't use Street View at all, takes a little bit longer to load, instead I just use the flat colored map. Embrace the change or be let in the dust of old technology - I see a wonderful new UI that will attract more users and allow other to easily use Google Maps and other products. They have brought a new touch that Apple holds all of the time.
- ewoodrich 12y ago
  I mostly agree, but I've found many Google UI changes to be lacking in terms of discoverability. On both Android and web apps I've been baffled by icons and buttons with no hints or explanation. Through trial and error I'm generally able to grok the new conventions, but I still get frustrated initially when presented with opaque symbology.
  - alttab 12y ago
    I hate the hidden swipe features. If there is no UI space for it, I'm not literally going to click and swipe around to "discover" shit. using an app, I dont want to have to discover, I want to easily be able to find what I'm looking for. Swiping between map results at the bottom of the new maps was completely unintuitive for me. I was still pinch zooming and clicking on individual results on the map. To "teach" me, they overlayed instructions on the search results, which was really frustrating when I was trying to read it.
    - eric_the_read 12y ago
      I had no idea you could swipe between map results! Wow. Talk about undiscoverable; if they had overlayed instructions for me (which they probably did), I probably just dismissed them without reading because I was trying to find my results.
      - alttab 12y ago
        Yup!
  - oftenwrong 12y ago
    Google seems to love using those "mystery meat icons". They should always include a setting for text labels on clickables. Being able to long press or hover for a tooltip would also be a welcomed addition.
    - myko 12y ago
      > Being able to long press or hover for a tooltip would also be a welcomed addition. This is standard for Android ActionBar icons already. If the icon is custom the developer needs only to set the: android:title property of the item and the long press will display the title and/or read it to the user depending on accessibility settings.
- alttab 12y ago
  Things I've hated the most about it so far: - It trying to introduce me to hidden gestures for "see more results!" when I'm driving. Sorry guys, using maps is not really the time for a tutorial, I'm in the middle of a task! - Re-routing. The new maps seems to re-route me, more often, and more often incorrectly, than the old maps did. - It also gives me different route results on my Glass than on my Phone. WTF?
- gone35 12y ago
  I don't know what you see - I think the new Google Maps is wonderful. (...) I see a wonderful new UI that will attract more users and allow other to easily use Google Maps and other products. Sure; to each their own and "wonderful" is a subjective notion, but it is a fact that the new Google Maps hid/removed functionality from the main screen [1]. It is also a fact that these design choices in effect force users to learn longer workflows/roundabouts for less functionality than before. And it is also a fact that some users are opting out as a result. The tractable question then is whether the improved use cases you cite are so "wonderful" and valuable for a large enough set of users, they are worth the collateral damage imposed upon the broader userbase. [1] http://www.digital-geography.com/short-announce-the-new-google-maps-a-comparison/ http://www.digital-geography.com/short-announce-the-new-goog...
matchu 12y ago
It's not clear to me that flatness and the removal of the pin feature are related. It's very feasible to develop a pin-like icon that fits the current Maps design; the pin was probably dropped (heh) for other reasons.
eco 12y ago
There is no need to use Search Nearby anymore. Search just searches near whatever you are looking at.
- awj 12y ago
  > Search just searches near whatever you are looking at. ...except for those times where it doesn't, and instead decides to return only the closest result for something. This is especially problematic for regional stores that have multiple locations. If I'm near one but want to meet someone at another Google apparently wants me to go to the close one and ask them for an address.
kevinwang 12y ago
What do you prefer to flat/minimalism?
lloeki 12y ago
> All I wanted to do earlier was drop the pin at my current location (which Google Maps couldn't divine due to no GPS) and then "Search Nearby" for eating places. /me goes to maps.google.com clicks on a random area of the map a "location" card pops up with lat/long and estimated name clicks on the card to validate the location a second card pops up below with a street view shot, "photos", "explore this area" with "search nearby" and "getting around" with traffic and travel options a third "quick facts" card is slid below clicks on "search nearby" and types "restaurants" Also possible: type "restaurants near whatever", or simply "restaurants", which scopes the request on the current viewport. Seriously.
- nemetroid 12y ago
  This discussion refers to the redesigned Android app. > Also possible: type "restaurants near whatever", or simply "restaurants", which scopes the request on the current viewport. This appears to work in the app as well, though.

Tsutsukakushi 12y ago

Google is the first big player to do flatness well imo.

psbp 12y ago
I remember thinking that Apple would introduce "ink"-like effects at some point after seeing their new design in iOS 7. I'm surprised that Google did it first, and actually did a great job with it.

Alupis 12y ago

Maybe I'm nit-picking... but "Material" is not a language... it's a design guideline. (the article, and the articles the article link to repeatedly call it a language when it's not)

dag11 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_language
- Alupis 12y ago
  I stand corrected. Seems wrong, but hey, I'm a programmer... not a designer ;-P
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - alphapapa 12y ago
    Don't drink the koolaid, man. You were right the first time. Calling it a "design language" is their way of obfuscating what they do, making it sound like it's something that only they can do. Therefore you, a mere programmer, should listen to them and do what they tell you, because you aren't qualified to "design" things. Hey, you didn't even know what a design language is! I think we are witnessing the collision between two worlds: art and engineering. People that would have been designing books and magazines and advertisements and refrigerator facades a few years ago are now applying the same techniques to computer interfaces. They're actually trying to stake out their claim to this relatively young field, and they use their own jargon and obfuscated ideas to discourage non-designers from getting involved. This is a problem because software interfaces are tools, not works of art that merely exist to be gazed upon. They should first be engineered, then made to look pretty. There is a reason you can walk into many places of business and see computer terminals with text-mode UIs, even monochrome ones: because they work and are efficient. Now those same interfaces could be made to look nicer by using high-res, color screens with nice widgets, without changing how they work--but hand that task to a designer and watch him pull back in disgust. No, it's got to look like a piece of modern, minimalist art, and all usable controls must be hidden away so as not to "distract" the user from what he "should be focusing on." The average person who just wants a phone he can talk to people with and get directions with is left to suffer in bewilderment as he drowns in a river of constant, unnecessary changes. Every few weeks an app he uses suddenly looks and behaves differently--usually right when the person needs to use it for something, not relearn how to use it. This person is the collateral damage as the two worlds collide and deposit their flaming debris on the peasants below who can only take what they are given and try to fumble through.

pervycreeper 12y ago

So much wasted space. Looks like any random "responsive design" website.

luke_s 12y ago

I think that material is great design, but terrible strategy and in the end may land up resulting in the Android design space being worse, not better. For years google (and many members of the design community) made a very successful argument that android apps should look and act like android apps, and iOS apps should look and act like iOS apps and web apps should act like web apps. Trying to achieve design consistency across platforms was going to annoy your users. Instead you should strive for _branding_ consistency across platforms and use native interaction patterns. A significant problem for Android has been iOS designs just copied over without adapting to the platform. The apps look and feel weird. As a user I find them confusing and frustrating to use. However progress was being made and people were starting to understand that if you want to build for Android you are going to need to design for Android. Material throws that out the window. It says it right there in the goals[1]: "Develop a single underlying system that allows for a unified experience across platforms and device sizes." IF we take it as given that our apps should look the same on all platforms, then why choose Material? Because I know my customers are going to say: "We have this great iOS design sitting right here, that we have already paid to have built. Lets use that! Besides we don't want to re-code our iOS app to suit Android". Or, they will come up with their own cross platform design to "differentiate themselves" and stand out. [1] - http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introduction.html#introduction-goals http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introducti...

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tesseract 12y ago
I read "platforms" in that sentence as the different Google platforms: Android on phones, Android on tablets, TV, Chrome, etc.
- luke_s 12y ago
  Hmmm, funny I read it as the web, iOS and Android. I guess because google already uses their own look and feel for their iOS applications. Though typically I disagree with what he has to say John Gruber of daring fireball seems to think the same way I do: "If there’s a hitch, it’s that Google seems to be promoting this as a cross-platform design framework — a way to design just one interface for both iOS and Android. Google’s own apps for iOS already feel like weird moon man apps; now they’re encouraging third-party developers to follow their style rather than iOS’s." http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/06/25/google-design http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/06/25/google-design

plg 12y ago

I sort of like the design. Too bad google's business model is still offensive though. At least with iOS I know the deal is: I give Apple money, they give me a widget. With Google the deal is they give me services, I give them ... gobs of information.

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interpol_p 12y ago

One of the things I noticed about Google's design demos was that they looked very bespoke. Each app had some really cool but very custom animations. (For example the play button in the music app jumping out and filling a rect with an animated circular fill.) How have their APIs improved to allow developers to easily animate things in the way they demonstrated? It's great to have a strong design direction, but providing the APIs to make it easy to realise that design is just as important.

luke_s 12y ago
Well, Disclaimer: I haven't actually used the API's. However on paper they look quite good: http://developer.android.com/preview/material/animations.html http://developer.android.com/preview/material/animations.htm... For example the play button jumping out would probably be a single call to ViewAnimationUtils.createCircularReveal() One of the problems with the old Holo design language was that people were doing great things with it, but much of it had to be custom made. The API's simply weren't meant to be stretched and pulled in the directions people were going. At the moment it appears that this is one of the major problems Material is addressing.
- interpol_p 12y ago
  That's excellent to see, thanks for finding that.
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higherpurpose 12y ago
From what I gathered from all the material design videos (they have a handful of them on Youtube), they're providing everything to do what they did.

scotty79 12y ago

I thought it was going to be one of those videos that show people's horror and disgust at what they are shown.

ape4 12y ago

The Emperor has no clothes. I hate huge swatches of solid color that doesn't mean anything.

aashishkoirala 12y ago

The first two reactions politely say that they essentially ripped off Windows, don't they?

aashishkoirala 12y ago
Wow that was a speedy downvote. It's almost as if someone's got their finger on the trigger constantly. Stressed much?
- CmonDev 12y ago
  You are not supposed to just go and say "The king is naked". Just politely say "iOS 7-8 and Android L are a nice spin on Microsoft's Modern GUI ideas".

currysausage 12y ago

Not directly related to Material, but to Android L: I always thought that the battery/antenna icons in the taskbar are way too bulky, which becomes more annoying as everything else on the UI is becoming thinner and thinner. Actually, I think this might be of the most noticeable design flaws in Android 4. I'm surprised that they didn't fix this in L, which seems very polished otherwise, and surprised that nobody seems to have mentioned that yet. Edit: Look at this screenshot/mockup: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/google-material2.png http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/google-materi... - Battery and antenna certainly aren't the pieces of information we want the user to focus on, yet they really stand out simply because they are so bulky, at least compared to the other UI elements. Edit 2: The screenshot also shows one of the things I like most about Material/L: Text elements are finally neatly aligned. Randomly aligned text elements are among my top pet peeves.

alphapapa 12y ago
Your comment is an example of everything that's wrong with software and UI design today. > Battery and antenna certainly aren't the pieces of information we want the user to focus on... Stop telling me what I should be focusing on! Stop acting as if a simple icon is reaching out of the screen and dragging my eyeballs toward it, like I have to be protected from this horrible, "distracting" icon by sanding away all of its distinctiveness and making it blur into the background, making it useless! When I need to know what my battery charge is, or what my signal strength is, I look at the icons, and they need to be distinct and clear! When I'm finished doing that, guess what--I don't look at them, and they are not a problem! It's not as if the stock Android battery and antenna icons are flashing and twirling around! Stop it with this minimalist dogma! It's madness, and these self-appointed design "experts" are dragging the whole industry down with them in their mindless pursuit of blandness and their personal ideal of beauty--which they put upon an altar and worship, while ignoring usefulness! A cell phone's screen is not a fashion statement, nor a work of art! It's a tool!
- randomfool 12y ago
  The battery/antenna definitely do not irk me like the original, but I have to agree that in the screenshot linked, the size and color of these passive information icons are extremely similar to that of the interactive 'edit', 'back' and vertical '...' icons. I'm not a visual or UX designer and don't have an answer, but these seem like two different categories of icons which could warrant alternate presentations.

derengel 12y ago

So I'm confused about this since google also has https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/ https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/ , how are they different or relate?

mynameisvlad 12y ago
They're completely different. Web Fundamentals are good practices for web development, things like how to make a responsive page and what that means, etc., while Material is a guide and common elements for good mobile and web design. A company can have several guides and guidelines on similar topics.

emehrkay 12y ago

I've always felt that iOS was more polished than android and couldn't quite explain why. Here is an example: open up mail in iOS and go to an inbox. Open up a message and slowing do the swipe right thing to bring in the previous screen. Look at the headings and how they move and fade into each other. The current Android doesnt have that little granular level of detail. Material does. I think it is exciting and it makes me want to design something

greggman 12y ago

I don't know if the Android camera app is considered to use "Material" but it's massively unintuitive to use. It's not obvious at all that to see a picture you just took you need to swipe to the left. Nor is it obvious that the small shutter icon once you have swiped means "edit" or "refocus" or whatever. Google's opinion seems to be "It doesn't have to be intuitive because you'll eventually learn it".

MaxDPS 12y ago
After you take a picture you can see that the picture is "stored" to the right. There is a little animation showing where the picture is going. I dont think its as hard to figure out as you are implying.
- greggman 12y ago
  I know it's hard because I'm actually an iOS user who happens to own a Nexus 5. I only use the Nexus 5 for testing. About once a month I pull it out to show someone the re-focus feature. It almost always takes me several minutes to figure out where it is. Finding the camera app is easy. Figuring out how to get to that feature is hard.

rdtsc 12y ago

I like it! I am not a designer, just a user of Android and this looks good. I just never liked or bought the complete flatness idea. Maybe I am too brainwashed by skeumorphic buttons shadows and whatnot. But we just don't live in the 2D world, the world is 3D and shadows, textures, depths help us interact with the real world (it is there without anyone explicitly adding it in, as in objects in the world are inherently 3D). This is sort of the middle ground. I think the pendulum has swung too far with the Windows and Metro design (and I do commend MS for being bold and going for it, that was fantastic I think). But now I think the pendulum has swung slightly back to a little more skeumorphic design, a little more shadows here and there, use some basic textures. Still flat not fake 3D buttons that look like ancient light switches but paper -- something in between. I can't wait to see more.

petilon 12y ago
Agreed. Here's an article that explains this reasoning in more detail: http://blog.tobiasandtobias.com/post/37179466962/in-defense-of-allegorical-design http://blog.tobiasandtobias.com/post/37179466962/in-defense-... Excerpt: Even ‘digital natives’ live in the physical world. We start learning how it works before we ever touch a computer, and even the most dedicated nerd spends more time interacting with physical objects than with digital interfaces. It doesn’t take additional learning to know that an object casting a shadow on another is in front of that other, for example. Failing to leverage that existing knowledge is tantamount to shutting down whole swathes of users’ brains.

Illniyar 12y ago

Not a single negative reaction? that seems weird, surely there should be dissenting voices, what do they say?

gurkendoktor 12y ago

The best thing I can say about iOS 7 is that the information density is still tolerable. Now look at the Material address book screenshot... :|

yannis 12y ago

Certainly they can do better explaining the "design language". Cliches and corporate lingua such as: "... A material metaphor is the unifying theory of a rationalized space and a system of motion. Our material is grounded in tactile reality, inspired by our study of paper and ink, yet open to imagination and magic". Come again?

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bane 12y ago

I'm guessing some of the weird explanation used to describe the new design language is some of the design world's terms of art bleeding out into layman-land where it sounds ridiculous, but may be full of meaning inside the design world. It reminds me of this http://adage.com/images/random/0209/pepsi-arnell021109.pdf http://adage.com/images/random/0209/pepsi-arnell021109.pdf which, while full of similar sounding "nonsense" nevertheless became Pepsi's new design.

dhruvmittal 12y ago
While I'm sure that was all super meaningful to actual designers, that was probably the funniest thing I've read all week. Particularly page 21's "magnetic dynamics."

petilon 12y ago

Flat UI leads to usability problems. For example see Nielsen Norman group's report on Windows 8 usability: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-usability/ http://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-usab... Or read this site for iOS 7 issues: http://uxcritique.tumblr.com/ http://uxcritique.tumblr.com/ Now Google is acknowledging this deficiency of Flat design. See: http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/design/material-design.pdf http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/... They have a page titled "Dimensionality affords interaction." Google is bringing back some dimensionality because a pure flat UI is harder to figure out.

CmonDev 12y ago

"Some elements, like containers, feel almost like a direct copy of Windows UI, to be completely honest." "I initially thought about Windows’ Metro design upon seeing the new UI, but it looks like they have added their own spin on it." I am glad people are giving Microsoft a well deserved credit. And to think Google's top designer was bashing Metro in past. Now we just need Jonny Ive to confess.