Design language, like any language is metaphorical. The thing that makes these skeumorphic designs work so well is that it kinda forces a consistent metaphor, and consistency above all else is huge for UX. The fact that it's based on things we've seen in real life is also helps, as it means we can reason about the UI with the same faculties we've spent our entire life training.
Why are designers not understanding this these days? I think one reason is that flat UI is super easy. Skeuomorphic is extremely hard to get right, and if you don't get it right it looks super tacky. Most people who have the word "designer" in their job title don't have the artistic skills needed to pull it off. This is why most designers are opposed to skeuomorphic. Somewhere in between is the right approach. The Ne…
What I don't understand is why those are treated as the only two choices?
Just adding some shadows, dividers, 3D buttons and real scroll bars again would go a long way to making things more usable without going full on into skeuomorphism to represent elements of the physical world.
A good example of the wrong direction was macOS in the switch to Tahoe. Buttons in modal dialog boxes became flat instead of 3D. They no longer look like buttons, they just look like a web-UI card with a gray background. There is no visual indicator at all that it is a clickable button.
Why? Legitimately, I want to hear from the designer(s) that made that decision and what their reasoning was.