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Google Design

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Re: Google Design

#171

We're no longer controlling every pixel. It's more like jazz improvisation. - Matias Duarte Source? What does that mean?

Either meaningless nonsense, or displays a complete ignorance of jazz. You pick.

No fixed / hard-coded information; everything reacts adapts, is fluid, interacts with other parts. Compared to how things were done in the past it seems improvised and free. Not far from jazz.

Re: Google Design

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole video felt like something Apple would put out.

That's precisely the point: Google is trying to convince everyone that they're as design-driven as Apple.

I can't tell if it's a 'grass is greener' thing, but after buying a Moto G in order to enjoy Lollipop/Material thinking the iOS flat redesign was lame. After a year of usage, I think lollipop isn't an improvement over KitKat, and worse than iOS (I do believe Apple knows some dark magic when it comes to user interfaces desktop or mobile).

More and more I'm thinking there are 3 levels of usage for a mobile device.

  - Fixed and instant: calling/answering/taking a picture
  - Semi instant: finding directions (often less urgent than the previous)
  - Complex: browsing, reading
the ~iPhone displaced the first level, which was the norm of dumbphone, fixed hardware interfaces. More and more OSes are aiming at making everything as the third. I can't get the lollipop phone interface in my mind, I'm even jealous of my mother's Bada based samsung.

Re: Google Design

#173
post #148

Am I the only one who gets a headache trying to decipher tile layouts like this? My eyes bounce back and forth and I still have no idea how the information is structured or what's important. I appreciate that Google is sharing all of this though.

It's not just the layout, the terminology is based on presumed knowledge. The second panel of information is a video covering "color theory" and goes off almost straight away talking about using "the 500s" and moving to "the 700s". I've no clue what this means. What is a 700? Strangely a google search yields no results as to what this means, but the video takes it as fact I should know what it's on about.

I think they expect you to be familiar with the Material Design spec and the Colors page: http://www.google.com/design/spec/style/color.html

Re: Google Design

#174

We're no longer controlling every pixel. It's more like jazz improvisation. - Matias Duarte Source? What does that mean?

To be fair, with Android you never controlled every pixel. You just cross your fingers. Also, what a weird image of jazz this man has on his head...

Re: Google Design

#176
post #129

Putting dots in the space between words makes it harder to distinguish word boundaries, which makes the text difficult to read. If design hinders usability, it's not good design.

Indeed. I work in accessibility/assistive-tech and the dots between words is a disaster.

Re: Google Design

#177
post #79

http://www.google.com/design/videos/making-material-design/ - cannot make up my mind if this video is purposely designed to come across as farce. I could easily imagine this being in a satirical comedy film.

The whole video felt like something Apple would put out.

It seemed worse to me. At least after watching Jony Ive talk about the "genius" of his design, I feel like I know what problem they're trying to solve and what they're doing to solve it. This video just seemed like a joke and the only real takeaway I have is that drop shadows are back for some reason.

Re: Google Design

#178
I hate how the little 'action dot' or whatever they call it moves around. On their colour palette video[1] you can see it sliding all over the place depending on the screen size. Why can't it just go in the top right like it always has been, instead of playing a game of 'hunt the dot'? I always have to remember to look at the bottom of my diary on my phone to add a new entry now which is pretty unintuitive for me :-(

[1] http://www.google.com/design/videos/palette-perfect/

Re: Google Design

#179
post #79

http://www.google.com/design/videos/making-material-design/ - cannot make up my mind if this video is purposely designed to come across as farce. I could easily imagine this being in a satirical comedy film.

Yes, all these people talking as if there was a UI revolution going on. Nothing in this video convinces me that materials design solves any problem. Heck, they do not even identify a problem that it could solve. All we get is dropshadows (which were already lame in the 90ies) and fluffy designer bla bla.

That's not "designer bla bla". Please don't mistake design for decoration. This is "pixel-pusher bla bla".

Re: Google Design

#180
post #35

Google bragging about design is like the nazis bragging about human rights

Don't be so hard on them, they've done a fantastic job. Material design is a purely graphic framework, not a way to decide which feature is going where (which googles still desesperately sucks at). The guys that created material design should be put in charge much more, because they're obviously the only one that have a true vision for that company. To me, that reflection should have been made on the very first itera…

> Material design is a purely graphic framework,

Exactly! And, as such, they should advertise it as it is. Merely graphical stuff, not an UI revolution, not better usability nor UX (where are the tests saying so?). I wish they just admit that they're trying to make something which looks cool (nothing wrong with that), not necessarily better UX-wise.

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