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Comment by ebf | Hacker News Reader

Is it actually harder though? I don't think so. I think there is some truth to the idea that content over chrome is a good usability principle (obviously to an extent, Win8 takes it a little too far sometimes), and in my opinion, it is easier to learn proper use of whitespace and good typography than how to make textures and less "sterile" designs.

My point is you are stating your opinion as if it is a truth, when it isn't.

Sure, citation needed is a little snarky, but I disagree that it doesn't bring anything to the debate and is irrelevant. Maybe you could have pointed to usability studies, so there would at least be some data to back up your claim.

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I'm not a designer (or a good one, anyway), so I welcome corrections from good designers, but I'd assume that whether or not flatness in this sense is a good idea would totally depend on context: how much site navigation is there, how many other presentational elements, ads, links to other things, etc.

Svtble works because it takes a minimalist's approach to all of that, throwing it all away into the bin. The content is readable because it's almost the only thing on the page. The font is large and the content is centered.

But would that work in the general case, as an approach for user interfaces and search engines and the modern day portal page and so on? I can't think of any examples there that would be considered "good design".

Good points, but a lack of examples does not necessarily mean that it isn't possible. I think Bing has down a good job of having a flat design with high usability.

http://www.bing.com/search?q=hello+world&go=&qs=n...

Ehh. Personally, I find Bing's example there to be identical to Google's, along with all the same flaws. It's readable, but for instance there's no contrast between the search results and the "related searches" sidebar.

And I would say that the use of whitespace and typography is enough to differentiate it.

Your examples all have the content centered under a single column (which is a LOT of chrome), a flat design would have little to no margins.

DF (http://daringfireball.net/) even has site index which is another no no from a flat deign perspective.

PS: Notice how both of these changes make the sight less user friendly?

When has flat design meant little to no margins? I'm genuinely curious about this interpretation of flat design.

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