Comment by jalfresi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jalfresi | Hacker News Reader

I must say, this blog pops up on HN every couple of months and after subscribing for the first few articles I'm STILL not sure as to main crux of his argument.

I understand that he hates the "flat" design trend. I know he loathes the "Californian minimalist". But I still can't quite grasp exactly what it is he DOES like.

His blog posts include lots of images comparing iOS icons to pre iOS7 versions, mostly comparing images without gradients with those that have gradients.

Can anyone actually explain his point? As far as I can make out he seems to be arguing that users would benefit more from design that "pretends-to-be-like-another-thing" rather than "represent-that-thing-as-it-is"; y'know, the opposite of honesty in materials. For the life of me I can't make out if he has a point, or it's just the lamentations of someone who got really good at drawing skeuomorphic* icons and is now buggered because the fashion is now for flat monochrome icons.

* I loathe to use the word like this as I don't believe that many cases that type of design or interface is strictly skeuomorphic, more misplaced metaphor. e.g. stitching on a fake leather notepad=skeuomorphic, detailed drawing of a hard disk drive to represent a hard disk=metaphor

> design that "pretends-to-be-like-another-thing" rather than "represent-that-thing-as-it-is"

Great, let's use the screen to do nothing but show that it is a bunch of pixels! Oh wait, that would render it completely useless.

No thank you, I'd rather stick to using conceptual metaphors[0] before letting UX design fall for the same mistakes made by contemporary arts, where everything has to be an abstract self-reference to that you are watching an artwork.

[0] http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Conceptual_metaphor

"Great, let's use the screen to do nothing but show that it is a bunch of pixels"

But it does that.

I'm not sure you follow my point - I would rather things on my screen did not waste those pixels pretending to be something they are not, in order to convince me that I can kind-of using it like that thing.

Here is an example:

Many web designers disguise hyperlinks on their page. They change the colour, remove the underline, add a 3d border to make it look like a button. Some go even further; some use a form button and add a click handler which fires of a page change when clicked.

My point is that a hyperlink is what it is. Why deliberately shatter the intrinsic understanding of how the web page works by purposefully destroying all that knowledge and then forcing the user to construct new understanding? Why can't a hyperlink be blue underlined text?

The answer to this question is usually "because it does not fit with the style or aesthetic of the page". And there-in lies the problem; the purpose of the page is not aesthetics.

> But it does that.

No, it does not. It uses these pixels to (re)present something else. You don't put down a slab of marble and say "this is a sculpture about marble" either.

I understand and agree with your viewpoint on hyperlinks, but I'm talking about the other extreme end, which is what a lot of shitty flat design ends up as.

You raise a common concern about honesty in materials and the real value gradients and other representational forms. More to come on that front.

Apologies if my comment was overly critical; I am genuinely interested in your opinion; I am just unable to dig into the meat of your argument. For example, this recent post doesn't provide any depth besides "all modern western and european design is trending towards a common style I abhor".

As a fan of european modernist design history, I see the current trends and fashions in modern interface design trending towards the modernists of the 50s and 60s, towards the old swiss/international style. As a Designer (software developer) with a strong sense of "duty to the public", a modernist at heart, I see this as a good thing; towards that fabled "Common Standard", that goal of least subjective interpretation possible. It finally seems the fashion is to aim at an unattainable goal that provides improvements all round.

I don't understand how self expression has any place in Design, especially interface design.

If that is your point :)

> Apologies if my comment was overly critical; I am genuinely interested in your opinion; I am just unable to dig into the meat of your argument.

Criticism is the name of the game, no apologies necessary.

> ... a modernist at heart, I see this as a good thing; towards that fabled "Common Standard", that goal of least subjective interpretation possible...

So much juice there–too much for today. I have strong disagreements with modernist thought, as you know. But if the majority of designers were aware of what a principled modernist approach was, at least there might be a bit of coherence in the output.

Ahhh... so its the classic "Design is Art" argument :) I look forward to your next blog post then, if only to make my blood boil! Haha!

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