Claymorphism: Will it stick around? • Hacker News Board

Re: Claymorphism: Will it stick around?

#71

Post by Ourgon » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:09 PM UTC

woolion wrote: post #35

This seems like Corporate Memphis absorbing all facets of design. I'm surprised to not find any mention of how infantilizing this is -- childish is absolutely inappropriate. I have always not cared too much about aesthetics for any product where use is the primary factor -- especially since in most cases you can easily customize digital products -- but this trend is really putting me off to the point where I won't us…

It does actually mention this, about halfway down:

One of the major points of criticism is that overusing Claymorphism and going overboard with colors and typography can give off a somewhat childish feel to the UI. Michał Malewicz acknowledged this drawback and gives a few suggestions on how to avoid that.

    “The friendliness of those shapes, along with the 3d imagery creates a slightly child-like interface. To counter it, it’s good to use minimal typography, strong accent colors good contrast.”

    — Michał Malewicz

There is still room for criticism though since this style of interface is not "somewhat" childish. It is the design language of Fisher-Prize, of large colourful plastic toys for toddlers.

If foresee a trend in classical Russian literature inspired user interfaces as a reaction. The Dostoyevsky style, dark and deep.

Re: Claymorphism: Will it stick around?

#72

Post by nigerian1981 » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:09 PM UTC

happymellon wrote: post #65

nigerian1981 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair the article does address the childish criticism: “ One of the major points of criticism is that overusing Claymorphism and going overboard with colors and typography can give off a somewhat childish feel to the UI.”

I'm pretty sure they are saying that any use is childish, not just overuse .

Fair point

Re: Claymorphism: Will it stick around?

#73

Post by zozbot234 » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:12 PM UTC

woolion wrote: post #35

This seems like Corporate Memphis absorbing all facets of design. I'm surprised to not find any mention of how infantilizing this is -- childish is absolutely inappropriate. I have always not cared too much about aesthetics for any product where use is the primary factor -- especially since in most cases you can easily customize digital products -- but this trend is really putting me off to the point where I won't us…

> This seems like Corporate Memphis absorbing all facets of design. I'm surprised to not find any mention of how infantilizing this is -- childish is absolutely inappropriate

That's just your impression, though. The Windows XP Luna look felt childish because it was dog slow on XP-era machines compared to the classic theme, so it ended up being pretty disrespectful of its users. But a smooth-shaded high-relief button is arguably the best equivalent to that "Classic" look on our modern, graphically-accelerated, variable-DPI environments. It avoids the overly-detailed skeuomorphic look while still being immediately intuitive.

Re: Claymorphism: Will it stick around?

#74

Post by Jaruzel » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:24 PM UTC

lou1306 wrote: post #51

Actually the iOS1 home screen is... Not as skeuomorphic as it could have been? The Telephone, Mail, and SMS icons are all highly stylized. Plus, all icons have that rounded square frame that makes absolute sense for a touch-based UI, but is not skeuomophic at all . Maybe there's a lesson here, like "don't overdo it"? Also, this neumorphism/claymorphism thing gives off some strong Windows XP Luna [1] vibes, maybe it s…

In my opinion the XP Zune theme was the best of the bunch. I used to use it by default on all my XP machines back in the day. If I could make Windows 10 look like XP I would in a heartbeat.

Re: Claymorphism: Will it stick around?

#75

Post by datavirtue » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

All of these are just arbitrary, naieve design decisions that have been given names and substance posthumously. I don't feel that any of it is honest. Monkeys playing with infinite color choices because they can. There is nothing special or dignified in any of these "designs."

Claymorphism doesn't exist. It will go completeyly unnoticed by the average internet traveler unless specifically asked for their opinion upon which point you will be bored out of your mind with their reply. They will barely notice it and forget about it just as quickly. The product of some overemployed artists at a corporation.

Re: Claymorphism: Will it stick around?

#76

Post by tiborsaas » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

Claymorphism feels a lot like web design from 2000's :) These shadows and bevel styles were the go-to tutorials for Photoshop. At the same time, I could never get them to look right. Lucky for me, I've discovered that MM_showHideLayers does something interesting and I went down the programming side of things instead :)

Re: Claymorphism: Will it stick around?

#77

Post by userbinator » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

woolion wrote: post #35

This seems like Corporate Memphis absorbing all facets of design. I'm surprised to not find any mention of how infantilizing this is -- childish is absolutely inappropriate. I have always not cared too much about aesthetics for any product where use is the primary factor -- especially since in most cases you can easily customize digital products -- but this trend is really putting me off to the point where I won't us…

It's the far too many rounded corners that triggers the disgust for me.

Re: Claymorphism: Will it stick around?

#78

Post by gedy » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:46 PM UTC

captainmuon wrote: post #14

Neumorphism is just a style, not a complete design philosophy like skeumorphism, or the rejection of skeumorphism. It wouldn't even be compared to the two if its inventor didn't give it a clever name. It does look nice though, when not overdone. But Claymorphism? Sorry but it looks like the kind of buttons I made with the emboss effect in Paint Shop Pro in the 90s :-D. But it does give me nostalgia. I think there is…

Yes, these all seem like variations on adding different shadows to controls vs flat style. Neat, but not some design manifesto.

Re: Claymorphism: Will it stick around?

#79

Post by j4yav » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 1:46 PM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #50

woolion wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fairly common reaction, very similar to the debate surrounding Elden Ring's "outdated UI" to the uninspired, bland, extremely generic UI coming from "best practices". What is interesting is all the angry critics saying to people "you are not supposed to like that, it is bad and you should follow my theory".

I have also noticed that anyone who says they didn’t enjoy the game just gets ridiculed and told they just suck at playing games. I tried elden ring for 3 hours and hardly worked out what I was meant to be doing. Basically no guidance, UI didn’t really explain anything, etc. Went back to playing Skyrim.

It's not for everyone, and honestly that's fine. Not sure why people are ridiculing others for not liking it.

Re: Claymorphism: Will it stick around?

#80

Post by DonHopkins » Thu, Mar 31, 2022, 2:08 PM UTC

The original "Claymorphic" video game from 1990: TROG in PLAYmation TM !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trog_(video_game)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHPjU7TZ73A