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The Reemergence of Style in Software

future.a16z.com

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Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#51

Post by gjvc »

This article takes many words to say very little. If anything, "style" in software peaked in the public mind with the rise of Mac OS X in the early 2000s where the Aqua theme was juicy, looked like you wanted to lick it, and combined with things like the genie animation gave Mac OS X a wonderful sense of character. (Probably peaking at 10.6/Snow Leopard.)

This character has been systematically removed from the system since then, with successive updates since Apple began, lemming-like, to follow some "thought" "leader" in "design" believing that flatness in UI design was somehow "modern" and innovative. (The irony is that the flat buttons use less CPU/GPU power to render than the shaded three-dimensional ones which preceded them, something of which we now have orders of magnitude more.)

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#52

Post by prox »

pjc50 wrote: post #31
prox wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am going to make a claim as someone who works in both the crossroad of devwork and design that there is not one piece of software that caters truly for the artist. Every piece of software for artists / designers is not intuitive. It’s sliders, knobs, modals and panels. Programmers making design software is Not A Good Idea. The way forward is something like ProCreate, so just the software and the pen, and maybe more…

It's been a long time since the unique and slightly bizarre Kai's Power Tools: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai%27s_Power_Tools

Yeah, and in many ways, we haven’t seen many more trials like that.

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#53

Post by prox »

ksec wrote: post #46
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ProCreate works very well with the Apple Pencil. The Apple Pencil, and the iPad Pro (esp. the latest of each), is awesome. They did a really good job on that. I don't use ProCreate, but that's mostly because I'm not really that kind of graphic designer. I remember looking at "paintbox" tools for video effects, in the 1970s. We've come a long, long way, and real artists have some really nice tools at their disposal.

So it is Apple Pencil that is making the difference, Not Pro Create? Because parent mention Apps were the problem? Or is it more like Apps designed for Apple Pencil will be the future? Not mouse and keyboard?

It’s the intuitive way you can draw without endlessly dialing knobs, tweak panels and so on. It’s fluent, which I feel, a lot of apps lack. I love to see more UI / UX creativity.

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#54

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

andybak wrote: post #47
agumonkey wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a bit of truth. The era of extremely engineered everything gave birth to flat design for instance. I'm not pro skeumorphism but I remember how odd software felt good in a way. As long as it was fun (good boards, useful programs) you ended up liking the quirks.

I don’t disagree but I didn’t get any of that from that opening statement. It seems to be arguing for diversity in UI which I happen to think is usually a terrible idea.

> It seems to be arguing for diversity in UI which I happen to think is usually a terrible idea.

I have to agree with this sentiment. I loved KPT, but that was more for the "adventure" aspect. I actually had difficulty using a lot of functions (don't ask me to remember which ones).

It's frustrating, designing innovative UI that also follows convention. It's a joy, when it works.

I have this iOS widget that I wrote[0]. It's really, really cool. Works a charm, and is easy to implement.

But I keep on not using it in my projects. It's too "in your face." I think that UI needs to get the hell out of the way, and just let the user do what they want to do.

I have a couple of more, more conventional widgets, that I use all the time[1], [2].

KPT was "in your face," like no other UI I have ever experienced.

[0] https://riftvalleysoftware.com/work/open-source-projects/#RV...

[1] https://riftvalleysoftware.com/work/open-source-projects/#RV...

[2] https://riftvalleysoftware.com/work/open-source-projects/#RV...

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#55

Post by theaussiestew »

prox wrote: post #53
ksec wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it is Apple Pencil that is making the difference, Not Pro Create? Because parent mention Apps were the problem? Or is it more like Apps designed for Apple Pencil will be the future? Not mouse and keyboard?

It’s the intuitive way you can draw without endlessly dialing knobs, tweak panels and so on. It’s fluent, which I feel, a lot of apps lack. I love to see more UI / UX creativity.

I’m very curious about what you mean specifically around UI/UX creativity. I do agree with you though, which is why I’ve been trying to build an app that has more “creative” and non traditional UX elements.

I also feel that an ‘Ink-Board’ should replace the trackpad as we know it. Basically an E-Ink tablet that serves as a stylus, pointer and control input. So that we’re not limited to discrete inputs (as opposed to analogue inputs).

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#56

Post by nsonha »

coldtea wrote: post #38

> By designing everything on the screen to be as photorealistic as possible, the software essentially negated needing to define its style or stance — it merely reflected the world outside of it. Not even close to reality. Aqua, iOS "skeuomorphism" had a very defined and unique style. It obviously wasn't some photograph of an actual desktop with some folders on top and a garbage can, as this makes it sound (not to men…

didn't Aqua introduce the dock, the most useless UI element on desktop? It baffes me that linux DEs these days have moved from some single bar that mimics the efficient Windows taskbar, to the "menubar and dock" anti-functional design copied from MacOS

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#57

Post by Randosaurus »

coldtea wrote: post #39
andybak wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I read the first sentence and my immediate reaction was "Well I don't. And I'm not sure anyone has ever expressed that opinion to me" and I stopped reading.

Well, here's that opinion: today's flat UIs all look the same, boring, and bland. I wish there was more quirkiness too. Perhaps not to Kai Power tool's levels, but I enjoy the functional quirkiness of many VST UIs. Now you can continue reading. Seldom anybody learned much, when they stopped reading at the point they disagreed with.

The flat UI's you're complaining about are an example of the form over function philosophy.

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#58

Post by mikewarot »

Pascal has style, simplicity, and an elegance about it. It was roundly criticized for the small differences from C (we always complain the most about the smallest details)

So instead we now have constructor factories that turn out classes so that you can abstract away what used to be a simple Record type in Pascal, in only 5 times the number of lines of code.

I strongly suggest reconsidering, and moving to the more elegant solution.

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#59

Post by TigeriusKirk »

notpachet wrote: post #24
Tade0 wrote: post #22

Going off on a tangent here but I clicked the link explaining why tower PCs used to be beige and it made me realize that my career didn't overlap with the era of cubicles - I entered the job market at a time when the norm was an open space plan. I wonder if I would hate the cubicle as much as I hate open space offices? Can anyone who's witnessed this transition weigh in?

You'd have hated cubicles too, before open office became the norm. Cubicles were the open office of their day. Before them, it wasn't uncommon to have an office with your own door. Or at least sharing a larger office with another person.

The fun part was watching the cubicle walls get shorter and shorter over the years until they vanished completely.

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#60

Post by megameter »

prox wrote: post #18
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #9

> Modern software’s humdrum lack of identity has resulted in users craving more interesting, opinionated tools, tools that feel like us — or a better, more interesting, wackier version of us. The above is the kind of sentence that you'll see in almost any fashion or arts magazine. Pretty fluffy stuff. Not really the kind of thing we're used to, in the engineering community. That said, I firmly believe that there's al…

I am going to make a claim as someone who works in both the crossroad of devwork and design that there is not one piece of software that caters truly for the artist. Every piece of software for artists / designers is not intuitive. It’s sliders, knobs, modals and panels. Programmers making design software is Not A Good Idea. The way forward is something like ProCreate, so just the software and the pen, and maybe more…

No advanced art process can avoid some amount of engineering, because the demand that is made is to measure and select with precision that which is to be edited.

When we use a mark-making tool like a pen, all that's happening is that we select the area being pressed to be darkened. Technique with those tools takes years to develop, and their full use comes in tandem with additional tools like rulers, prospekt, and stencils.

So when we add knobs and sliders and modes we are simply trying to describe those kinds of intents within a precise abstraction instead of a collection of simpler tools. It does go overboard in that nobody's going to adjust every knob presented.

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