Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design • Hacker News Board

Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#81

Post by tomc1985 » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 9:06 PM UTC

nnq wrote: post #58

tomc1985 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fashion really has no place in computing. These are tools and we should treat them as such "The reaction, as all reactionary trends, was to throw out everything that came before and fully embrace this new direction of minimalist ui, white space layouts and magazine typesetting. Some argue that it was a timely change to meet the demands of the increasing complexities of the interface. That we had grown out of the need…

> Fashion really has no place in computing. These are tools and we should treat them as such This cracked me up... You do realize that even things like programming language selection are 90% fashion-driven, right?

> You do realize that even things like programming language selection are 90% fashion-driven, right?

For some, sure.

Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#82

Post by woodandsteel » Sat, Mar 10, 2018, 3:24 AM UTC

The problem with flat design is the human optical perception is the product of literally hundreds of millions of years of evolution, and it is designed for a three dimensional world.

Flat design the latest example of a utopianistic drive that started in the 20th century by some intellectuals to make a world that fits robots, not human beings. Other examples are modern classical music and modern architecture. Modern classical music never caught on because it simply doesn't fit the human auditory system. Ditto modern architecture,though it has persisted partly for business reasons, and has been greatly modified to make it more humane.

Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#83

Post by lowtolerance » Sun, Mar 11, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

knolan wrote: post #11

et-al wrote: post #5

Yes please. Apple had a good balance between skeuomorphism and minimalism a few years ago, but as Jony Ive & Co. strip out decoration for flatness, iOS 11 almost looks unfinished. Case in point: the PIN screen and the calculator app. Lock screen: https://file.mockplus.com/image/2017/10/5627bfee-8dbf-44b4-9... Calculator: http://cdn.iphonehacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/iOS-10... I live in an old Victorian house,…

The current iOS calculator app is atrocious looking. However I usually use use spotlight for my calculations but that’s been hidden several swipes away if you’re in an app. Where’s the minimalism in the amount of touch input needed? Replying to emails in Mail is a chore of taps.

It’s literally two swipes or less to get to Spotlight from anywhere in iOS.

Also, it’s only two taps to reply to an email in the Mail app. What a chore!

Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#84

Post by lowtolerance » Sun, Mar 11, 2018, 5:01 PM UTC

torgoguys wrote: post #53

currywurst wrote: post #21

It's time for the pendulum to swing back I guess ;) The article give iOS 7 the credit for ushering in the 'flat' design trends ... But I remember the Windows Phone 7-8 'Metro' (later renamed to Modern) design language as the key influence. It blew away people with the attention to typography and proportional grid-based layouts.

I think you're right. But, in a reversal of roles, Microsoft did the design well and Apple's copy was a poor, souless wannabe IMO. They sucked any semblance of "joy" (for lack of a better word) out of the Metro ideas and iOS.

I disagree. Microsoft just took typographic design principles that have been extant for decades and which were already commonplace in print and web design and applied them wholesale to UI design.

There are situations where this makes perfect sense, but it was hardly a sensible approach to UI design on the whole. Metro was widely criticized for making it more difficult for users to be productive, which I would argue is the primary concern of any desktop operating system. And indeed, Microsoft quickly moved beyond Metro in favor of Fluent, a design language that is much more in keeping with Apple’s current design language than it is with Metro.

Metro, despite being relatively popular with UI designers and developers, totally flopped with users, who did not find joy in using it at all. With Metro, Microsoft attempted to cut out UI chrome in favor of content. The idea being that removing chrome would make room for content. Instead, they ended up treating content as chrome, leaving substantially less room for actual content. Microsoft failed to meet their own design goals for Metro. And what’s worst, they seemingly failed to recognize that they had failed for quite some time.

Apple’s human interface design guidelines for iOS, while far from perfect, are a much truer realization of the design principles that Microsoft set out to implement with Metro. Rather than treating content as chrome, chrome is reduced to its most basic elements, retaining its ability to inform the user as to its function, while minimally detracting from content.

Re: Bringing Back Skeuomorphic Design

#85

Post by knolan » Sun, Mar 11, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

lowtolerance wrote: post #83

knolan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current iOS calculator app is atrocious looking. However I usually use use spotlight for my calculations but that’s been hidden several swipes away if you’re in an app. Where’s the minimalism in the amount of touch input needed? Replying to emails in Mail is a chore of taps.

It’s literally two swipes or less to get to Spotlight from anywhere in iOS. Also, it’s only two taps to reply to an email in the Mail app. What a chore!

It used to be just one minor swipe down. You could pull down the notifications blind just a small bit and you’d have access to it instantly. It was really useful, now I have to swipe across two screens. [0]

Mail is similar, there are more taps than there used to be in favour of minimalism. So yes it is a chore when it used to be effortless and now it’s two swipes across useless empty screen filling space in different directions that iOS sometimes misinterpretes.

[0] http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/06/17/ios-10-tidbit-spotli...