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)
Top designers react to Google’s new ‘Material’ design language
11–20 of 86 posts
Re: Top designers react to Google’s new ‘Material’ design language
#12I 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/introducti...
Re: Top designers react to Google’s new ‘Material’ design language
#13I 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.
Re: Top designers react to Google’s new ‘Material’ design language
#14Maybe 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)
[deleted]
Re: Top designers react to Google’s new ‘Material’ design language
#15The 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 al…
There is no need to use Search Nearby anymore. Search just searches near whatever you are looking at.
> 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.
Re: Top designers react to Google’s new ‘Material’ design language
#16Maybe 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)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_language
I stand corrected. Seems wrong, but hey, I'm a programmer... not a designer ;-P
Re: Top designers react to Google’s new ‘Material’ design language
#17I 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 consisten…
[deleted]
Re: Top designers react to Google’s new ‘Material’ design language
#18Re: Top designers react to Google’s new ‘Material’ design language
#19I 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 consisten…
I read "platforms" in that sentence as the different Google platforms: Android on phones, Android on tablets, TV, Chrome, etc.
Re: Top designers react to Google’s new ‘Material’ design language
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wond…
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.
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.