New subscriber and happy I'm here. Super keen insight particularly the comparison of modern → post modern architecture and the parallels to today. Interface design in particular is mired in homogeneity but brand design is almost equally infected. The challenge is creating experiences that are both usable (i.e. comprehensible, accessible, familiar etc.) but also allow some personality of the designer/organization to shine through. Interesting times!
Glad you enjoyed this piece! I think we do live in interesting times. We'll see if the historical analogy I've drawn here holds, but if it does then hopefully we'll see more designers playing with the "rules" of flat design. I think some of the Not Boring apps point in this direction: https://www.andy.works/
I have to confess: I’ve read so many articles about this transition that I didn’t expect to learn much here and was mostly just checking it out! But this is easily the most substantive and best post on the subject I’ve read, and I appreciated the historical context you gathered and presented so well. Sick post and great read!
I can’t help but wonder why we have so little data or quantification in this discussion. I’m a designer so I’m happy to say e.g. “nah, this isn’t about data” whenever possible (lol), but in this case we are in theory evaluating something like usability (even if we’re also playing with style and aesthetics). It’s interesting to me that you never hear for example “oh, among people +65 skeuomorphic UIs outperform flat UIs by X%” or “task completion rates 3x with flat design elements for more advanced users” or what-have-you. Maybe the deltas aren’t there, but even that would be interesting!
Do we really believe that the great flat vs skeuomorphic debate has *no* measurable dimensions?! Or has design —perhaps for the better!— finally given up on pretending that there are elements of “science” to what we do?! I have no idea!
Glad to hear you enjoyed this piece. The question of how to objectively measure what is going on here is very thought-provoking! It would be fascinating for example to see some kind of longitudinal study that measured key task completion rates from iOS 1 to 16 among different demographic cohorts. Presumably Apple must track something like this as a hygiene metric?
Ultimately I think I subscribe to the Raymond Loewy "Most Advanced Yet Acceptable" notion of design where you are taking people on a journey from something they already know to something new. Hopefully if we deploy enough that's familiar plus the right amount of new things in a familiar way then the average user will still find our design intelligible and be able to use it for what they want to do. On this basis, I'd wager the hypothetical longitudinal study above would show pretty stable results, with maybe the occasional sharp drop, as users understanding and capability (mostly) evolved alongside it. But who knows!
I would also be reluctant to assert there are no elements of "science" to design! But at the same time, the nature of design as a kind of communicative language means that is never quite settled in perhaps the same way that a scientific study can hope to be. Though the basic capabilities of the human body have not changed much in 100 years and we can rely on scientific laws about perception, cognition etc our social customs, technological powers and expectations have changed immensely (and keep changing) and this makes designing something quite a different kind of task and basically more of an art imo
It's definitely interesting to watch history repeat itself at such a pace. I really agree that it's following a familiar path which you've demonstrated beautifully. I think it does go beyond aesthetic taste, just like the movements which had philosophical underpinnings.
Modernism sought a universal truth, which I think Web 2.0 Nielsen Norman era also suggested - there are UX patterns that should not be messed with. Then post modernism sought to dismantle the top-down order, through irony and the mixing of high and low cultural symbols. We're seeing something similar with Mondrian flatness x Koonsian chome.
But if that's true I wonder what that means culturally. Post modernism had a cynicism and relativism which made it fun, but ultimately without hope. Also weird that this entire thing is happening - babushka style - within an utterly post modern context. Perhaps the 'metaverse' will have its own classical-modern-postmodern movements.
Hi Sean, your comment got me thinking how weird it is that this aesthetic/cultural cycle is playing out in an accelerated way within another aesthetic/cultural cycle! I feel certain a technology like the Metaverse will speed up these recursive cycles even faster.
Perhaps the communicative capacity of language – and other forms of culture like design – is exhausted more quickly nowadays and needs to be renewed more regularly through these kinds of shifts?
It brings to mind an image of a spiral made of spirals. The major spirals winding slower, with more space, and the minor spirals at higher frequency, burning out.
If you also think about this as a recursive pattern, it's interesting to map it backwards. So if neumorphism = post modernism, and flat design = modernism, then skeuomorphism = classicism? Which casts an interesting light on classical art and architecture. I think of places of worship designed to imitate the realms of the afterlife like a writing app with torn pages.
I wonder if the return of shadows seeks to mirror 3D + haptic touch. A flat screen is no longer just a flat screen - it actually has texture through interaction.
New subscriber and happy I'm here. Super keen insight particularly the comparison of modern → post modern architecture and the parallels to today. Interface design in particular is mired in homogeneity but brand design is almost equally infected. The challenge is creating experiences that are both usable (i.e. comprehensible, accessible, familiar etc.) but also allow some personality of the designer/organization to shine through. Interesting times!
Glad you enjoyed this piece! I think we do live in interesting times. We'll see if the historical analogy I've drawn here holds, but if it does then hopefully we'll see more designers playing with the "rules" of flat design. I think some of the Not Boring apps point in this direction: https://www.andy.works/
I have to confess: I’ve read so many articles about this transition that I didn’t expect to learn much here and was mostly just checking it out! But this is easily the most substantive and best post on the subject I’ve read, and I appreciated the historical context you gathered and presented so well. Sick post and great read!
I can’t help but wonder why we have so little data or quantification in this discussion. I’m a designer so I’m happy to say e.g. “nah, this isn’t about data” whenever possible (lol), but in this case we are in theory evaluating something like usability (even if we’re also playing with style and aesthetics). It’s interesting to me that you never hear for example “oh, among people +65 skeuomorphic UIs outperform flat UIs by X%” or “task completion rates 3x with flat design elements for more advanced users” or what-have-you. Maybe the deltas aren’t there, but even that would be interesting!
Do we really believe that the great flat vs skeuomorphic debate has *no* measurable dimensions?! Or has design —perhaps for the better!— finally given up on pretending that there are elements of “science” to what we do?! I have no idea!
Glad to hear you enjoyed this piece. The question of how to objectively measure what is going on here is very thought-provoking! It would be fascinating for example to see some kind of longitudinal study that measured key task completion rates from iOS 1 to 16 among different demographic cohorts. Presumably Apple must track something like this as a hygiene metric?
Ultimately I think I subscribe to the Raymond Loewy "Most Advanced Yet Acceptable" notion of design where you are taking people on a journey from something they already know to something new. Hopefully if we deploy enough that's familiar plus the right amount of new things in a familiar way then the average user will still find our design intelligible and be able to use it for what they want to do. On this basis, I'd wager the hypothetical longitudinal study above would show pretty stable results, with maybe the occasional sharp drop, as users understanding and capability (mostly) evolved alongside it. But who knows!
I would also be reluctant to assert there are no elements of "science" to design! But at the same time, the nature of design as a kind of communicative language means that is never quite settled in perhaps the same way that a scientific study can hope to be. Though the basic capabilities of the human body have not changed much in 100 years and we can rely on scientific laws about perception, cognition etc our social customs, technological powers and expectations have changed immensely (and keep changing) and this makes designing something quite a different kind of task and basically more of an art imo
It's definitely interesting to watch history repeat itself at such a pace. I really agree that it's following a familiar path which you've demonstrated beautifully. I think it does go beyond aesthetic taste, just like the movements which had philosophical underpinnings.
Modernism sought a universal truth, which I think Web 2.0 Nielsen Norman era also suggested - there are UX patterns that should not be messed with. Then post modernism sought to dismantle the top-down order, through irony and the mixing of high and low cultural symbols. We're seeing something similar with Mondrian flatness x Koonsian chome.
But if that's true I wonder what that means culturally. Post modernism had a cynicism and relativism which made it fun, but ultimately without hope. Also weird that this entire thing is happening - babushka style - within an utterly post modern context. Perhaps the 'metaverse' will have its own classical-modern-postmodern movements.
Hi Sean, your comment got me thinking how weird it is that this aesthetic/cultural cycle is playing out in an accelerated way within another aesthetic/cultural cycle! I feel certain a technology like the Metaverse will speed up these recursive cycles even faster.
Perhaps the communicative capacity of language – and other forms of culture like design – is exhausted more quickly nowadays and needs to be renewed more regularly through these kinds of shifts?
It brings to mind an image of a spiral made of spirals. The major spirals winding slower, with more space, and the minor spirals at higher frequency, burning out.
If you also think about this as a recursive pattern, it's interesting to map it backwards. So if neumorphism = post modernism, and flat design = modernism, then skeuomorphism = classicism? Which casts an interesting light on classical art and architecture. I think of places of worship designed to imitate the realms of the afterlife like a writing app with torn pages.
Love the image! Interestingly classical architecture is very much skeumorphic because of the mimetic way it apes older forms of construction in new materials: https://www.britannica.com/topic/architecture/Mimetic-ornament
I wonder if the return of shadows seeks to mirror 3D + haptic touch. A flat screen is no longer just a flat screen - it actually has texture through interaction.
Yes I think this is definitely part of the story. The visual style needs to keep in step with the richness of available interaction patterns
Really interesting and well-written, thank you!
So pleased you liked it! 🙏
Great piece, Ben, really enjoyed it!
Thanks Andra 😊