Live data from Hacker News

The Reemergence of Style in Software

future.a16z.com

61–66 of 66 posts

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#61
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sorry for a late feedback as I do interest myself in this topic. If you look at Photoshop or Affinity, they all work the same way. The present an icon to manipulate the image, they have the same panels.

And you can ofcourse create beautiful works of art with it. But in terms of usage, it’s all the same.

Now if you are lucky you got yourself a Cintiq or maybe Surface Studio edition, giving you a hands on experience.

When it comes interfacing though, I feel we haven’t really explored much. Someone here mentioned KAI power tools, which was quite intuitive and fun to use.

I just wish for more types of computing/interfacing and use of screen and see some creativity in this field.

An Ink-board does sounds interesting though!

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#62
post #56
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

>didn't Aqua introduce the dock, the most useless UI element on desktop?

No, that would be NeXT OS. Through the NeXT dock had different look, and slightly different behavior.

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#63
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The opposite could be argued as well: it's design supposed to focus on function alone (after all that was their pitch: put the content front and center, remove aesthetic touches from the "skeuomorphic" UIs, etc.) but with no redeeming aesthetic qualities (which are also important for actual human users).

So, it's not exactly form over function (besides thought into form is necessary for function - you can have a real world lever that is e.g. thin and crooked and it will still function as a lever, but a good lever also has good form -- e.g. be designed to have a good grip).

It's "design ideology and novelty for some manager's sake" over form and function.

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#64
post #8

I don't want to know how much money was paid for these logos https://future.a16z.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Logo-Tran...

I would barely call them logos. It's like they found the name of the company mentioned in the title of some blog article and just took a screenshot. The new Pinterest logo is downright offensive, given how great the original was.

[deleted]

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#65
post #8

I don't want to know how much money was paid for these logos https://future.a16z.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Logo-Tran...

I would barely call them logos. It's like they found the name of the company mentioned in the title of some blog article and just took a screenshot. The new Pinterest logo is downright offensive, given how great the original was.

[deleted]

Re: The Reemergence of Style in Software

#66
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sorry for a late feedback as I do interest myself in this topic. If you look at Photoshop or Affinity, they all work the same way. The present an icon to manipulate the image, they have the same panels. And you can ofcourse create beautiful works of art with it. But in terms of usage, it’s all the same. Now if you are lucky you got yourself a Cintiq or maybe Surface Studio edition, giving you a hands on experience. W…

Yeah I see what you mean. All the panels are largely the same, to do with configurable numeric inputs. I think this is a interesting space to explore, there are so many possible alternatives.
Post reply on HN