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Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

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Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#61

Post by et-al »

chrismcb wrote: post #50
et-al wrote: post #5

Yes please. Apple had a good balance between skeuomorphism and minimalism a few years ago, but as Jony Ive & Co. strip out decoration for flatness, iOS 11 almost looks unfinished. Case in point: the PIN screen and the calculator app. Lock screen: https://file.mockplus.com/image/2017/10/5627bfee-8dbf-44b4-9... Calculator: http://cdn.iphonehacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iOS-10... I live in an old Victorian house,…

I'm missing your case in point. Based on the images you provided I can't tell which one is iOS 11. It's like 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. The calculator is a little bit different between the trip, but I wouldn't say either one is unfinished, kit is either one better than the other.

iOS 10 is on the left; iOS 11 is on the right.

For me, having the subtle details like having a thin gradient border for the PIN input gives those "buttons" a more refined look compared to just flat discs.

Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#62

Post by majewsky »

I agree that some of the most extreme instances of flat UI design need to be dialed back, but:

> make UI fun again

Hell no. I'm not using an app to have fun with the UI, I'm using an app to complete some sort of task [1]. Sure, the UI designer wants to have some fun (same for the developer), but in the end, the user's experience matters the most.

When designers embrace this back-to-skeuomorphism trend, I'd like to remind them of Dieter Rams' Good Design Principles:

> 5. Good design is unobstrusive.

> 6. Good design is honest.

> 7. Good design is long-lasting.

> 10. Good design is as little design as possible.

[1] Implying that it's some sort of productivity app, rather than some game or entertainment content.

Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#63

Post by omer_balyali »

wmeredith wrote: post #25
currywurst wrote: post #21

It's time for the pendulum to swing back I guess ;) The article give iOS 7 the credit for ushering in the 'flat' design trends ... But I remember the Windows Phone 7-8 'Metro' (later renamed to Modern) design language as the key influence. It blew away people with the attention to typography and proportional grid-based layouts.

Yes, design is fashion after all. It’s cyclical.

Design is not fashion, fashion is fashion. Otherwise, every market and product/service segment has its own "fashion", but that doesn't make them "is fashion". (Startups are fashion, engineering is fashion, education is fashion, technology is fashion etc.)

Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#64

Post by Piko »

nnq wrote: post #56
userbinator wrote: post #44

IMHO the most important skeuomorphic thing in UI is to make buttons actually look like buttons, i.e. they are obviously meant to be pressed. Far too much time has been wasted on trying to learn UIs where buttons are virtually indistinguishable from static text. Borderless buttons are particularly frustrating, especially when there's multiple of them next to each other.

THIS. Material Design guidelines tried to drill these into deisgners' head. But man, their damn artsy skulls are thiiiiick... There should be a "Shadow + Fill if it's tappable/clickable. F please!" rule though in every design school. Every time I see it not followed I get a fit of rage, that unfortunately I need to swallow and not fire the designer because I know he's otherwise good at UX too. It's should something l…

fuck.

There, I said it.

Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#65

Post by ahartmetz »

currywurst wrote: post #21

It's time for the pendulum to swing back I guess ;) The article give iOS 7 the credit for ushering in the 'flat' design trends ... But I remember the Windows Phone 7-8 'Metro' (later renamed to Modern) design language as the key influence. It blew away people with the attention to typography and proportional grid-based layouts.

It was Metro, and before that websites that got rid of divider lines and frames, signifying borders between areas by empty space.

I actually mostly like that trend and only think it goes overboard when you don't know what you can or cannot interact with anymore.

Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#66

Post by ahartmetz »

dawnerd wrote: post #30
RachelF wrote: post #18

Please do bring it back. In my opinion, it looks better than the flat modern interfaces that everybody now uses. Starting with Windows 8 phone minimalism has made computer interfaces uglier, and harder to use. It seems like UI designers are just as fashion concious as clothes fashion designers, and also have less concern for the comfort/usability of their product. [1]

Windows looks like they fired all their designers and let developers make the interfaces. It seems like a waste that we go to high resolution screens and take all the detail out of interfaces.

What about magazines - where are the gradients, where are the textures? So far behind the technical possibilities... I think they figured out something over all these years.

And yeah, I hate the look of Windows XP through 7 with the fire of a thousand suns. Just look at the Windows 7 start button. Or the scarlet and light blue window buttons on Vista. There I wonder what they did to their designers to make them produce such garbage.

Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#67

Post by ahartmetz »

nnq wrote: post #58
tomc1985 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fashion really has no place in computing. These are tools and we should treat them as such "The reaction, as all reactionary trends, was to throw out everything that came before and fully embrace this new direction of minimalist ui, white space layouts and magazine typesetting. Some argue that it was a timely change to meet the demands of the increasing complexities of the interface. That we had grown out of the need…

> Fashion really has no place in computing. These are tools and we should treat them as such This cracked me up... You do realize that even things like programming language selection are 90% fashion-driven, right?

Grandparent needs to machine learn a container full of IoT blockchain.js as a service.

Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#68

Post by megaman22 »

wildrhythms wrote: post #47
stephencoyner wrote: post #36

I agree that most UI is the same these days and some change from the norm should be encouraged, but I don't think that UI with actual real world things like binder clips is needed. Mobile apps don't need clips to keep pages together, so lets not bring new constraints into a field that already has it's own to work with. I love how Google is updating material design to have more aggressive shadows and bring in elements…

When every app looks and acts the same, why have different apps at all? What I want is one single mega app that does everything. At least then I can rest peacefully knowing that the interfaces between all of my digital playspaces are consistent. Think of how wonderful it will be when I can open my phone and not be surprised by what a designer has carefully crafted. This excites you too, doesn't it?

Emacs, I guess /s

Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#70

Post by ahartmetz »

rbosinger wrote: post #15

The very first thing I thought of when I started seeing everything moving to "flat design" was "I wonder how long this will last?" I figured everything would go flat and then designers would bring back skeuomorphic designs and they would pop extra hard in contrast. Now I bet we'll go really loud and retro ("Stranger Things") for a while until we get worn out and need to take a break and go flat again for a while.

One can at least hope that the amplitude of pendulum swings decreases, which seems likely to happen to me.
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