[drewprops]

I'm reading these now, sharing them in case anybody wants to discuss.
(I've only read part 3 so far)


Part I: Fashionable Nonsense

Part II: Pixel Pushers

Part III: Conformist Responsive Design

Part IV: Credible Threats




...

[Eugene]

I hate flat design.

I pretty much agree with all of his points.

1) Flat design fucking sucks. It is against the very core of the old Apple spatial desktop paradigm. Websites with extreme flatness look generic and are therefore hard to navigate. Imagine if the buttons on this forum were all just light blue plaintext?

2) Don't design your apps to look identical on 5" phones, 10" tablets, and 27" desktops. I hate it when message boards have don't have simplified mobile versions. I'd hate to use a mobile site on my desktop.

3) A lot of this is Apple's fault. They're pushing these UI guidelines. Non-conformity = lack of continuity. You shouldn't stray from Apple's guidelines, even if you hate them, without good reason.

4) UI design isn't just about making things pretty. There is science/math behind it. Leaving design to individuals who are purely artists or coders is sub-optimal.

[Wrao]

The flat design problem gets worse too as it's adopted industry wide. It's the type of thing that, sure, maybe it's cool if a couple of products or companies use it but as soon as it becomes the dominant trend then everything starts looking the same in a dumb way.

[Ebby]

I find myself squinting at the screen because I can't read buttons/text or differentiate icons well with each update. Especially the sidebar in Finder windows. I relied on hints of color in the icons and it is all gone now.

Exception being iTunes; the red icon is a pretty obvious change.

[Ebby]

Originally Posted by Ebby ... Exception being iTunes; the red icon is a pretty obvious change.

Well that didn't last long. Hard not to take that personally now.