I can give you billions of reasons and the trillions in compound effect, and note the jump when it all changed (according to you)
So yeah how you can sit there and argue that it doesn't lead to more sales is beyond me.
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Why is website design so awful today, generally?
- Thread starter Tozovac
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I can give you billions of reasons and the trillions in compound effect, and note the jump when it all changed (according to you)
So yeah how you can sit there and argue that it doesn't lead to more sales is beyond me.
You left out the part where you proved that dumbing down the refurbished store page directly impacted sales. Maybe you just forgot.I can give you billions of reasons and the trillions in compound effect, and note the jump when it all changed (according to you)
Looking forward to your update with that info!Are you that lonely that you just look for arguments on the internet. You suggest that the problems started in 2012. Revenue figures clear suggest different with even one of the biggest jumps every. And the growth in revenue keeps coming.You left out the part where you proved that dumbing down the refurbished store page directly impacted sales. Maybe you just forgot.
But despite the facts in revenue gain, standards, and so on. You still know better and disagree with everything ?
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Not lonely, I'm just not yet tired of beating the drum against Apple's abandoning function over form and won't tire until I see the tables turned.
You quoted a statement from me specifically speaking about the dumbing down of the refurb store to where it's impossible to compare various MacBooks for sale without having a pencil and notepad nearby to take notes, in counter to someone else justifying radical over-simplified page changes like that in order to increase sales/traffic. Just read a little slower next time and you'll likely not miss it next time. 
So now the entire argument hinges on sales numbers for refurbs specifically - which Apple don't publish. Making it impossible to argue, therefore Tozovac wins again! Yay!
I like how it is literally everyone elses job to provide the evidence for Tozovac. He's a genius really. He makes arguments with zero evidence and then literally says "show me the evidence" and gets other people to do the work so he can reject it. This thread is fascinating when you realise it isn't about design at all, and it's just about being right on the internet at all costs. It's pretty interesting to watch the dynamics at play here.
I like how it is literally everyone elses job to provide the evidence for Tozovac. He's a genius really. He makes arguments with zero evidence and then literally says "show me the evidence" and gets other people to do the work so he can reject it. This thread is fascinating when you realise it isn't about design at all, and it's just about being right on the internet at all costs. It's pretty interesting to watch the dynamics at play here.
Recently I had to login to SiriusXM's site to change some account-related info:
www.siriusxm.com
The site was so bad I had to Google their contact info to call them and get the job done. I literally couldn't figure out how to navigate their site, it was all a bunch of blue, white, certain elements hidden behind Javascript layers that the old fashioned landline call from my office was my only way to get the job done. Yet, they want everything done online and encourage it. That adds more frustration since automated A.I. controlled phone systems have only gotten worse since 2001.
Their app isn't much better looking, and it can be a struggle for first-time users to find out exactly where the '80s on 8' channel even is. It's basically the same ol'e flat music app formula. Thank goodness on Android, at least, you can sideload an APK of a really old Android 2.3 version and it is much better. Older apps on Android, for the most part, will still work.
Tozovac a few pages back used the LIFX app for an example of how bad things get, and thank goodness I got an APK of the very first version of said app, and I kept all my old bulbs which thankfully don't require updating to the latest app to continue working. I was an early adopter of LIFX and liked the idea behind it at the time.
SiriusXM: Everything You Want to Hear Lives Here
Whether it’s new hip-hop and classic comedy or ‘90s jams and sports podcasts, everything you want to hear lives here at SiriusXM.
The site was so bad I had to Google their contact info to call them and get the job done. I literally couldn't figure out how to navigate their site, it was all a bunch of blue, white, certain elements hidden behind Javascript layers that the old fashioned landline call from my office was my only way to get the job done. Yet, they want everything done online and encourage it. That adds more frustration since automated A.I. controlled phone systems have only gotten worse since 2001.
Their app isn't much better looking, and it can be a struggle for first-time users to find out exactly where the '80s on 8' channel even is. It's basically the same ol'e flat music app formula. Thank goodness on Android, at least, you can sideload an APK of a really old Android 2.3 version and it is much better. Older apps on Android, for the most part, will still work.
Tozovac a few pages back used the LIFX app for an example of how bad things get, and thank goodness I got an APK of the very first version of said app, and I kept all my old bulbs which thankfully don't require updating to the latest app to continue working. I was an early adopter of LIFX and liked the idea behind it at the time.
no, not the entire site, just elements of it seemed to move layer by layer. Either way when a site is so unusable that I have to resort to a phone call, your site is broken.
One of the huge issues I had was simply logging in. It wanted to ask a ton of odd questions (even though I had passed the captcha and entered the correct password) and then the 'next' button disappeared so I couldn't pass. Explain how that happens? In fact, when I called, I made sure to make note of that, and bluntly told them their site sucked.
But hey, it might be age. I'm only 41, but perhaps those 20 and younger who can stand these flat UIs can handle it just fine? Given their adoration of flat UI it wouldn't surprise me. I still can't figure out the iPhone X (or Android 10) gesture system. All these trends (such a removing buttons for gestures, flat UIs, layered site elements) are solutions looking for a problem. If the older method worked fine, and no one complained, then it's simply change for the sake of change, or fixing what was not broken, just to satisfy a few kids who demand change (of any kind) because their attention spans and lack of muscle memory hinder their enjoyment of an app, website, or OS. Yet, for those of us who know how things should work, we have to suffer for the younger set.
Now, if you change something that improves the experience, or adds new features that make sense, then by all means. But once you hide things behind hamburger menus, or have redundant icons that mean settings (ellipsis, gear icon in the same app) and make it where one has to haphazardly tap everything to see what happens in order to figure out what you did and where item x got moved to after the update, it just makes no sense. Is there some reason site UI has to change so drastically without demand for it, or without actually improving the experience? I wasn't aware fashion had to be considered...
Obviously, a GUI was a major improvement over a command line, especially for new users. Having apps whose updates add in features that help the experience is also a good thing. But going from depth to flat, or rearranging a site just for the sake of 'being different' is about as beneficial to your user/customer as Wal-Mart or Kroger rearranging the aisles and causing one's shopping experience to take longer than it should because everywhere you remember the butter or soft drinks were located are now at the opposite end of the store (in fact I never understood the point of that except to anger the customer)
Many accuse me of being resistant to change, but they're incorrect. Resistant to needless change that harms the experience sure. Because in some ways, it shouldn't require changes. Which is why cars still have 4 wheels instead of 8. or 3. Sometimes, leaving well enough alone is better.
One of the huge issues I had was simply logging in. It wanted to ask a ton of odd questions (even though I had passed the captcha and entered the correct password) and then the 'next' button disappeared so I couldn't pass. Explain how that happens? In fact, when I called, I made sure to make note of that, and bluntly told them their site sucked.
But hey, it might be age. I'm only 41, but perhaps those 20 and younger who can stand these flat UIs can handle it just fine? Given their adoration of flat UI it wouldn't surprise me. I still can't figure out the iPhone X (or Android 10) gesture system. All these trends (such a removing buttons for gestures, flat UIs, layered site elements) are solutions looking for a problem. If the older method worked fine, and no one complained, then it's simply change for the sake of change, or fixing what was not broken, just to satisfy a few kids who demand change (of any kind) because their attention spans and lack of muscle memory hinder their enjoyment of an app, website, or OS. Yet, for those of us who know how things should work, we have to suffer for the younger set.
Now, if you change something that improves the experience, or adds new features that make sense, then by all means. But once you hide things behind hamburger menus, or have redundant icons that mean settings (ellipsis, gear icon in the same app) and make it where one has to haphazardly tap everything to see what happens in order to figure out what you did and where item x got moved to after the update, it just makes no sense. Is there some reason site UI has to change so drastically without demand for it, or without actually improving the experience? I wasn't aware fashion had to be considered...
Obviously, a GUI was a major improvement over a command line, especially for new users. Having apps whose updates add in features that help the experience is also a good thing. But going from depth to flat, or rearranging a site just for the sake of 'being different' is about as beneficial to your user/customer as Wal-Mart or Kroger rearranging the aisles and causing one's shopping experience to take longer than it should because everywhere you remember the butter or soft drinks were located are now at the opposite end of the store (in fact I never understood the point of that except to anger the customer)
Many accuse me of being resistant to change, but they're incorrect. Resistant to needless change that harms the experience sure. Because in some ways, it shouldn't require changes. Which is why cars still have 4 wheels instead of 8. or 3. Sometimes, leaving well enough alone is better.
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Oh stop already.
I was pointing out the poor justification in your 2nd paragraph in post #485, regarding the driver for "what I call bad web design" as being sales-driven. I contend those are just bad decisions based on following the flat/minimalist interface design fad, purely and simply.Recently I had to login to SiriusXM's site to change some account-related info:
SiriusXM: Everything You Want to Hear Lives Here
Whether it’s new hip-hop and classic comedy or ‘90s jams and sports podcasts, everything you want to hear lives here at SiriusXM.
Absolutely horrible app, I agree. You're presented with a cornucopia of scattered content and I have no idea where is the best place to begin. Crap site.
On the other hand, like I've been smiling about for months now, the world is coming out of the vague/flat design fog. Apple included. Check out Best Buy. We wanted to buy a chest freezer, so we searched for "freezer." The filters/picks on the left side of the screen helpfully have defined boxes/framing that define and separate the various picks/choices, which helps immensely with providing context for very quick (almost subconscious) understanding. This is instead of trendy faint grey horizontal lines between the various picks. And, the boxes available to check have a faint diagonal shading reminiscent of a 3D "click me" indication...again, providing quick context for very quick understanding (instead of a flat design box that's hardly discernible as being "pickable." Way to go Best Buy, it's great to see the return to what I call efficient, function-first design.
Since Akrapovic acknowledged that I know it all....in the golden age of iOS and OS X (early 00's to 2012), Apple had the balanced head of Steve Jobs plus so many different new things being introduced (iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air, Mac Mini, etc) that they had no choice but to leave good things like their user interfaces largely "alone" (while refining, refining, refining annually) while focusing their Marketing and Design energies on development of the new product innovations/introductions.
But once once the low-hanging fruit of the mp3 player, smart phone, touch tablet, and uber-portable MacBook were introduced (and the pace of annual radical innovations slowed), it seemed like Apple had no choice but to focus inward in the quest to "innovate," keying in on aspects of their current line-up. Namely, let's reinvent the iPhone interface! New!
Unless Apple can think of more meaningful innovations (AirPods and M1 mac's come to mind as the only significant standouts since 2012), we may be doomed to bouts of Change for the Sake of Change every so often. But let's hope we keep riding the wave heading "back towards function-first UI" that I'm seeing in each iOS update.
I like that my post talked about general sales and income over the world as a whole, and you narrowed it down to refurbed macs. The one thing we can't get stats on. Suits your argument well eh. I'm sure you have those stats to share. Businesses and designers around the world are eager to get their hands on this data you have, as apparently they're just throwing away free money following analytics systems you didn't even know existed a week ago.
A fad is a short lived crazy. We're now 7 years into this fad, which stretches through every major operating system in every platform. I guess we just need to add fad to the list of misunderstood and misused terms here eh
Do we have any more examples of bad design? Preferably from multi-billion dollar corporations who are struggling for income.
A fad is a short lived crazy. We're now 7 years into this fad, which stretches through every major operating system in every platform. I guess we just need to add fad to the list of misunderstood and misused terms here eh
Do we have any more examples of bad design? Preferably from multi-billion dollar corporations who are struggling for income.
Keep trying to raise dust getting caught up in semantics, why don't ya.I like that my post talked about general sales and income over the world as a whole, and you narrowed it down to refurbed macs. The one thing we can't get stats on. Suits your argument well eh. I'm sure you have those stats to share. Businesses and designers around the world are eager to get their hands on this data you have, as apparently they're just throwing away free money following analytics systems you didn't even know existed a week ago.
A fad is a short lived crazy. We're now 7 years into this fad, which stretches through every major operating system in every platform. I guess we just need to add fad to the list of misunderstood and misused terms here eh
Do we have any more examples of bad design? Preferably from multi-billion dollar corporations who are struggling for income.
Yes, the minimalist UI things many of us gripe about are/is/was a fad that's slowly fading.
When you have a moment, go into a dark, quiet room and ponder: Why did "dark mode" suddenly become a thing in the past few years. Couldn't possibly be from...thoughts from someone that interfaces were too white/stark? Hmm...how 'bout that.
Add to that Apple keeps slowly adding back elements into their mobile/Mac OS's that are a bit more defined and less vague than the flat-at-all-costs minimalist no-discernible-button-shapes, much to my appreciation. Further add to that my earlier example of Best Buy's site whose product search results stood out to me as being in a format that's actually very, very intuitive and easy to understand instantly.
Hang on, the ride (back to function-first design) is not over.
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Unfortunately, I'm not seeing flat UI going anywhere at the moment. This new trend called 'neuomorphism,' is just another euphemism for Material Design, only without Google being involved. Google themselves call it 'Material Design 2.0'. It's just flat with some bits of texture sprinkled about.
I did have high hopes though in earlier betas of Big Sur, they had tons of skeuo plastered about. But then the flat UI fans had to scream and whine and the later betas had gotten flatter and flatter. Plenty of jokes and insults about Scott Forstall in that thread as well. Then it got completely flat aside some icons in the final.
I also had some hope the icons would at least get better in iOS 14. Unfortunately, we just got some more of iOS 7. A lot of icons are still the same as they've been since, the widgets are just as flat as ever, and they brought back the ugly red Music icon right from iOS 7. Every other bit of the UI remains unchanged.
Android 10 is as flat as ever as well. They made the gestures follow iOS's example (as in they make no sense). in Android 9, they did make sense. They followed old WebOS's standard and even had 'tap pill to go home' which made perfect sense. So the gesture pill doubled as a home button and it had a separate back key also. That all got removed in Android 10.
The only skeuo I see today are the old UIs on all my old devices that I still use (and prefer to use). The apps I use are all old versions which still run in Android 9 on my LG Stylo 5 and older un-updated (as in no longer maintained) iOS apps on my iPhone 6S. I dedicated a home screen to the skeuo wonders. Many of them are apps that never got updated after iOS 7.
The only 'modern' OS I know of that can offer skeuo is Linux. But that's always been a Linux thing--you know, freedom of choice, a UI/DE for anyone and everyone. Windows 10 to an extent offers theme capability via third party apps. Unfortunately, macOS (sorry, Apple, it's Mac OS!) stopped working with themes since Yosemite. I think it's their new permissions model.
I haven't seen a single website that's skeuo yet other than https://old.reddit.com because they kept their old page available. Not sure if Hotmail still does. I often use the archive to visit sites that way they never have to look like crap. The only exceptions are sites that haven't changed that much such as Google, this site (other than the round contact avatars I hate), buggies gone wild (still running old vBulletin), and a few other forums. Youtube I use via the old Android 2.3 app. It still works, and no ads. Sometimes a video won't play the first time but it works eventually. The odd thing is that I can find certain old content on that app that you can't find anywhere on the new app, videos that are apparently hidden only on newer versions.
There's more and more flat coming. Just check out the de-evolution of the Firefox icon. The latest version you can't even tell what it is. It's like a hairball today.
![images.jpeg]( "images.jpeg")
I did have high hopes though in earlier betas of Big Sur, they had tons of skeuo plastered about. But then the flat UI fans had to scream and whine and the later betas had gotten flatter and flatter. Plenty of jokes and insults about Scott Forstall in that thread as well. Then it got completely flat aside some icons in the final.
I also had some hope the icons would at least get better in iOS 14. Unfortunately, we just got some more of iOS 7. A lot of icons are still the same as they've been since, the widgets are just as flat as ever, and they brought back the ugly red Music icon right from iOS 7. Every other bit of the UI remains unchanged.
Android 10 is as flat as ever as well. They made the gestures follow iOS's example (as in they make no sense). in Android 9, they did make sense. They followed old WebOS's standard and even had 'tap pill to go home' which made perfect sense. So the gesture pill doubled as a home button and it had a separate back key also. That all got removed in Android 10.
The only skeuo I see today are the old UIs on all my old devices that I still use (and prefer to use). The apps I use are all old versions which still run in Android 9 on my LG Stylo 5 and older un-updated (as in no longer maintained) iOS apps on my iPhone 6S. I dedicated a home screen to the skeuo wonders. Many of them are apps that never got updated after iOS 7.
The only 'modern' OS I know of that can offer skeuo is Linux. But that's always been a Linux thing--you know, freedom of choice, a UI/DE for anyone and everyone. Windows 10 to an extent offers theme capability via third party apps. Unfortunately, macOS (sorry, Apple, it's Mac OS!) stopped working with themes since Yosemite. I think it's their new permissions model.
I haven't seen a single website that's skeuo yet other than https://old.reddit.com because they kept their old page available. Not sure if Hotmail still does. I often use the archive to visit sites that way they never have to look like crap. The only exceptions are sites that haven't changed that much such as Google, this site (other than the round contact avatars I hate), buggies gone wild (still running old vBulletin), and a few other forums. Youtube I use via the old Android 2.3 app. It still works, and no ads. Sometimes a video won't play the first time but it works eventually. The odd thing is that I can find certain old content on that app that you can't find anywhere on the new app, videos that are apparently hidden only on newer versions.
There's more and more flat coming. Just check out the de-evolution of the Firefox icon. The latest version you can't even tell what it is. It's like a hairball today.
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Hotmail/Exchange's online email interface is a joke. They "updated" it a few years ago. Too white/undefined throughout the page, too much wasted space, poor/unintuitive flat design layout. Horrible. I use it only as a last resort (I instead access my old Hotmail account thru iMail).
I too dislike the round avatars here. Dumb. Form over function, lemmingly following iOS7's dumb circle theme. Overlooks the opportunity to use available space in the corners.
I'm more positive in that things will turn around. It simply MUST, once you think about it: Consider Firefox's minimalistic flat icon. It only "makes sense" that it's a fox if a user thinks back to what the original looked like, before flattening and dumbing-down. If flat/minimalist design were to continue, it could only eventually turn into an orange or white circle. That's it. Therefore, I contend that at some point some young designer will have a "brainstorm" to rework the orange or white circle into a beautiful detailed fox, perhaps ironically called a "retro" design closer to what we were used to seeing a decade ago.
Just like needing to have seen a 10-year old Firefox icon to understand what the current one "stands for," some of Jony's diarrhea of the mouth justifications for iOS7 never held any water to me. He has been quoted saying that people no longer need certain helpful cues since they know how to tap/touch glass. That's completely overlooking their usefulness "today" and to future users. (I'm not talking about green felt and leather stitching, but talking about function-first non-minimalist interface cues that left little questioning to the user). Same old story.
Sure. The retro design theme in the automotive industry. Think: Ford Mustang/GT, Chevy Camaro, Dodge Charger/Challenger, all minimalist representations of their 1960's designs. Overall, or in the long run, it's bad design. It's maybe fun in the short run and certainly a revenue-generator selling to the baby boomers, but not only is this a sad admission of not being able to think of a better fresh/newer design, but if this were such a robust, "good" long-reaching design direction, what options does it leave Ford/GM/Dodge? Keep removing detail until all their designs look like bars of soap with 4 wheels? Introduce simplified retro versions of their 70's/80's designs next? Had Apple stuck to retro design, we'd have 30 inch MacIntosh's instead of MacBooks. There's your answer, you're welcome.
I remember folks even here (before I had an account) saying 'folks don't need skeuomorphism to use a phone' all the time. OF course I didn't need it, I thought it made using the device so much fun (and why I became an Apple fan circa 2010 when I was handed my first iPhone, replacing an old Nokia 5185i) and my device literally became whatever I wanted it to. I went from lugging a CD player, cell phone, and digital camera to having one device. It could literally turn into a radio (via some internet radio app that resembled an old digital FM transistor radio, complete with LCD display and knobs that worked via multi-touch) or a literal notepad (with torn paper animation when you 'delete') and so on. I loved it. It was so much fun and you never knew how far it'd go, so it made me WANT to find even more on the App Store.
Android's implentation was a bit haphazard. Android 2.1-2.3 seemed like they tried to be skeuomorphic, but not as well thought out as Apple. Devices had too little RAM and too little internal storage to really make it work, too. I did appreciate Mass USB Storage which sadly died for no reason, making it much harder to transfer files from a PC, and I resorted to rooting the device to make up for some shortcomings and to customize them farther. But I still preferred Apple, well, until iOS 7 happened. At that time, updates always made things better so I didn't really worry until I woke up that morning and thought both my iPhone and iPad went into 'safe mode' since it looked so wrong.
But the point stands. I can use flat UI apps/OS, I just hate looking at them. So I usually work around it (if it's the only way) by using Siri or my Watch to do a task so I don't have to look at the screen that much. Otherwise I keep to my tablets, or devices supporting themes or which can do Linux. I keep all my old Samsung phones too just in case I get angry enough and just pop my SIM into them. Unfortunately, the threat of requring VoLTE made me pop their SIMs into some newer phones I kept but didn't use (ZTE devices, mainly. They still feel like classic Samsungs) and the newest phone I have now is an LG Stylo 5, which, while having a mostly flat UI, I made it themed to resemble my idea of what a 6.2" pen-capable Galaxy S4 would be. Lockscreen, sound effects, icons, overall home screen UI, weather widget, and some of my older apps. It also included some long-lost features dumped from most modern smartphones such as a notification LED, a headphone jack, and no notch.
So that makes my iPhone 6S frozen with iOS 13 (albeit themed), LG Stylo 5 (themed, mostly older apps), and ZTE Z-five C LTE (very skeuomorphic, apparently ZTE didn't get the memo in 2017!) and my older Samsung tablets, a Galaxy Note 10.1 (2012), Tab 2 7 and 10.1 (2012), and Note 8.0 (8 inches, not related to the Note 8 smartphone. It is a cellular-capable tablet from 2013)
The Samsung UI, TouchWiz Nature UX (2011-2014) is about as skeuomorphic as iOS 6. It ran on Android versions from 2.3-5.0.1 Lollipop, but retained the Android 2.x aesthetic, such as button themes, icons, certain sound effects, colored notification icons, UI elements, and system app theme. S Note on my Note 10.1 has paper textures and cork board. Smart Remote looks like a brushed metal remote. I use my Mail apps mostly on those since they make sense and look good to my eyes. They retain tablet UI, which made the apps follow the aspect ratio of a tablet proper. They have front-firing stereo speakers. Pens. Basically they did then what an iPad Pro does today. Quite ahead of their time.
I have to disagree with your distaste of classic design in vehicles though. I would pay a ton to have a comfortable Buick LeSabre with pillowy plush seats any day vs. dealing with numb butt on a modern 'luxury' car. I hate how homogenized vehicles have become, where I can't tell my Saturn ION from an identically-colored Nissan Sentra. I also hate this obsession with grilles that make front-end collisions pretty much instant-total (huge grill fad) of the vehicle if it so much as bumps a fire plug (there's zero impact protection and the radiator is exposed)
I really do miss the old days of landyacht cars. I loved how each was unique. I was a total fan of the '70s cars with comfy interiors that felt great on a long trip and were well made. I had a 1984 Chrysler Fifth Avenue until 2013 when it suffered the common 'will eat tires every 2,000 miles no matter how aligned it was' issue along with rising gas prices. I miss those tufted seats though.
![010717-Barn-Finds-1982-Chrysler-New-Yorker-Fifth-Avenue-1.jpg]( "010717-Barn-Finds-1982-Chrysler-New-Yorker-Fifth-Avenue-1.jpg")
Android's implentation was a bit haphazard. Android 2.1-2.3 seemed like they tried to be skeuomorphic, but not as well thought out as Apple. Devices had too little RAM and too little internal storage to really make it work, too. I did appreciate Mass USB Storage which sadly died for no reason, making it much harder to transfer files from a PC, and I resorted to rooting the device to make up for some shortcomings and to customize them farther. But I still preferred Apple, well, until iOS 7 happened. At that time, updates always made things better so I didn't really worry until I woke up that morning and thought both my iPhone and iPad went into 'safe mode' since it looked so wrong.
But the point stands. I can use flat UI apps/OS, I just hate looking at them. So I usually work around it (if it's the only way) by using Siri or my Watch to do a task so I don't have to look at the screen that much. Otherwise I keep to my tablets, or devices supporting themes or which can do Linux. I keep all my old Samsung phones too just in case I get angry enough and just pop my SIM into them. Unfortunately, the threat of requring VoLTE made me pop their SIMs into some newer phones I kept but didn't use (ZTE devices, mainly. They still feel like classic Samsungs) and the newest phone I have now is an LG Stylo 5, which, while having a mostly flat UI, I made it themed to resemble my idea of what a 6.2" pen-capable Galaxy S4 would be. Lockscreen, sound effects, icons, overall home screen UI, weather widget, and some of my older apps. It also included some long-lost features dumped from most modern smartphones such as a notification LED, a headphone jack, and no notch.
So that makes my iPhone 6S frozen with iOS 13 (albeit themed), LG Stylo 5 (themed, mostly older apps), and ZTE Z-five C LTE (very skeuomorphic, apparently ZTE didn't get the memo in 2017!) and my older Samsung tablets, a Galaxy Note 10.1 (2012), Tab 2 7 and 10.1 (2012), and Note 8.0 (8 inches, not related to the Note 8 smartphone. It is a cellular-capable tablet from 2013)
The Samsung UI, TouchWiz Nature UX (2011-2014) is about as skeuomorphic as iOS 6. It ran on Android versions from 2.3-5.0.1 Lollipop, but retained the Android 2.x aesthetic, such as button themes, icons, certain sound effects, colored notification icons, UI elements, and system app theme. S Note on my Note 10.1 has paper textures and cork board. Smart Remote looks like a brushed metal remote. I use my Mail apps mostly on those since they make sense and look good to my eyes. They retain tablet UI, which made the apps follow the aspect ratio of a tablet proper. They have front-firing stereo speakers. Pens. Basically they did then what an iPad Pro does today. Quite ahead of their time.
I have to disagree with your distaste of classic design in vehicles though. I would pay a ton to have a comfortable Buick LeSabre with pillowy plush seats any day vs. dealing with numb butt on a modern 'luxury' car. I hate how homogenized vehicles have become, where I can't tell my Saturn ION from an identically-colored Nissan Sentra. I also hate this obsession with grilles that make front-end collisions pretty much instant-total (huge grill fad) of the vehicle if it so much as bumps a fire plug (there's zero impact protection and the radiator is exposed)
I really do miss the old days of landyacht cars. I loved how each was unique. I was a total fan of the '70s cars with comfy interiors that felt great on a long trip and were well made. I had a 1984 Chrysler Fifth Avenue until 2013 when it suffered the common 'will eat tires every 2,000 miles no matter how aligned it was' issue along with rising gas prices. I miss those tufted seats though.
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Sorry. I was looking at the array of dials and knobs around the entire cockpit.
A Minimalist's nightmare ?
I think you are genuinely interested in why "we" have problems with recent design trends.
So it might be helpful to explore some - to understand how each is tracked, what the interpretation is, how success is measured.
For example:
Menu Bar : Plain text (same font as body content). No down arrows. No borders. Text over the hero image (i.e no differentiated bar)
(Other than 3 lines, it would be my contention that this "must" be the least usable Navigation.)
But each of these could be adjusted.
i) Add a white panel / bar to background the Menu text.
If the rest of the Home page was white,...navigating a snowy landscape so.....
ii) Make the Menu bar a different colour from the Content area.
iii) Put a symbol alongside each Menu item (e.g. down arrow)
iv) Put a line between each Menu item
v) Make a border around each Menu item
vi) Add a gradient or drop-shadow to each Menu item
There are load of other features that "disappoint" - e.g. excessive scrolling, centring everything, RWD that fails to detect the device, grey text, - but I'll stop there.
My point is.....
I can believe that a "new" design might result in more clicks ...... but which design change achieved that - and why ?
Could it have been publicity ? (e.g. a new advertising campaign to coincide with new website? Re-branding ?)
Put another way.....
Please show me the study that focused on just one web-site change ....
e.g. the removal of colour gradients or drop-shadows resulted in more clicks when it became monotone / flat.
.....and then each of the other individual changes.
Lastly (for the moment, on individual design changes).
Where is the evidence that pale grey text achieves more clicks than black text ? (or very, very near black)
And in the same vein, please show me a site where the text is "too black".
(This question has been posed on several design blogs - and so far no-one has cited a "text too black " website.)
If supply and demand worked as I think it should, then there should have been a huge enough demand for a site to change to a flat design but from what I see, they just up and decided that the site needed to change even without a single reason to from a customer perspective--in other words, no customer demanded the site must change. The site probably worked perfectly fine as it was. If they didn't lose customers in the switch to flat design, then they just got lucky--the site dev took a gamble and won.
Still a risky thing for any business to do. But where was the demand? Seems they just took influence from other sites or Apple, not due to a drop in clicks. Basically they rearranged the aisles and it didn't hurt them.
A lot of companies are doing this today. They're changing even without a demand to change. They just do. The OEMs seem to be telling us what we want instead of the reverse--which isn't how things should work. It should be the customers dictating demand, not the other way around. Companies should respond to consumers. I've sent feedback to many telling them their app or site sucks but only get a generated response 'thank you for your submission, if you have problems, try rebooting your device!' or something to that effect. I often wonder if they got an A.I. doing the responses. Just read some reviews and one-star ones from Play Store after an app does an update that reverts the UI to an unusable or boring state. Many of the 'developer responses' are the exact same. No acknowedging the complaint, just saying 'thanks for the review, if our app broke your device try rebooting it!'
Makes me sick. Some of us are IT pros and are treated like grandparents on Facebook. I just wish a developer doing skeuo existed today. I really think Scott Forstall should have developed for Android when ousted from Apple, and made some beautiful apps and showed them. But hey, I can dream can't I? It would have been nice to put Apple in their place once Android skipped past them from his influence, but oh well.
Companies would go bankrupt at one point in time if they angered people enough, but now they are all like 'hey, this is our new look, you'll get used to it!' and that's it. We just accept that's how it is and do NOTHING to change it. Even if it sucks. I can't think of a single time an app reverted to its previous skeuo state despite a myriad complaints about the 'redesigned interface'.
Still a risky thing for any business to do. But where was the demand? Seems they just took influence from other sites or Apple, not due to a drop in clicks. Basically they rearranged the aisles and it didn't hurt them.
A lot of companies are doing this today. They're changing even without a demand to change. They just do. The OEMs seem to be telling us what we want instead of the reverse--which isn't how things should work. It should be the customers dictating demand, not the other way around. Companies should respond to consumers. I've sent feedback to many telling them their app or site sucks but only get a generated response 'thank you for your submission, if you have problems, try rebooting your device!' or something to that effect. I often wonder if they got an A.I. doing the responses. Just read some reviews and one-star ones from Play Store after an app does an update that reverts the UI to an unusable or boring state. Many of the 'developer responses' are the exact same. No acknowedging the complaint, just saying 'thanks for the review, if our app broke your device try rebooting it!'
Makes me sick. Some of us are IT pros and are treated like grandparents on Facebook. I just wish a developer doing skeuo existed today. I really think Scott Forstall should have developed for Android when ousted from Apple, and made some beautiful apps and showed them. But hey, I can dream can't I? It would have been nice to put Apple in their place once Android skipped past them from his influence, but oh well.
Companies would go bankrupt at one point in time if they angered people enough, but now they are all like 'hey, this is our new look, you'll get used to it!' and that's it. We just accept that's how it is and do NOTHING to change it. Even if it sucks. I can't think of a single time an app reverted to its previous skeuo state despite a myriad complaints about the 'redesigned interface'.
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Ha ha. Nice! I'm not suggesting to banish retro-design completely, but I do critique its all-or-nothing application to American muscle cars in this case for the reasons I mention above. Same as I critique Apple's all-or-nothing application of a reworked iOS interface from top to bottom back in 2013 with very, very limited concessions to add back in intuitive interface elements that (to me) significantly aid function, like bolt (read: non paper-thin) font, bold text, show button shapes, increase contrast, etc. that were hidden away under "Accessibility" as if they were illegitimate children Apple was ashamed of and banished to live in the basement crawlspace.
We think alike in that I abhor the nose-heavy blacked-out ultra-grille fad that Audi poisoned the automotive world with. I love the idea of the automotive industry "stealing" technological advancements like airbags, satellite radio, radial tires, dimming opera lights, etc., but the across-the board stealing of the Audi badge/shield grille is a low point in automotive design; it overlooks the significant trade-offs of depriving an automaker of having a design theme that is clearly "theirs" and it deprives the owner of a grille/bumper that actually works like a bumper and provides some level of being able to withstand light/moderate slow-speed contact against another and not leave a mark or cause an expensive replacement.
Funny, automotive design is the other "thing" like web/app/UI design where I feel the design world took a rather refined, mature product and started thinking too hard digging for opportunities, resulting in certain force-fit jarring changes having, in the least, questionable long-lasting universal value, and at the worst, a noticeable reduction in function to many. Cars pretty much now all look alike after cribbing from each other trends like oversize blacked-out grilles, floating roof silliness, angular random sheet metal creases, alien-eye oversize headlights, fake porthole vents, etc. You used to be able to tell a Toyota from a Ford from a Chevy from a BMW, and now they all look alike from 100 feet.
I agree with a lot you say, but reflecting your line of thought: Companies can most certainly introduce change that's not 100% consumer-driven if the change is rooted in some innovative functional improvement first and foremost, even if accompanied with a radical aesthetic re-skinning as long as the re-skinning does not negatively impact the function. Even changes that are purely appearance-based can be great, to keep things fresh and fun, as long as there's not a noticeable reduction in function as a trade-off. Good, robust design changes have to be free of any noticeable reductions in function at the same time. iOS7's UI changes (some of which still linger today) and its light grey font, white-out presentations, flat design, material design, etc., are so full of negative trade-offs in parallel with any gains such that as a whole, they're not good designs.
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Heck, you used to be able to HEAR the difference between a Ford, or Chevrolet, or Chrysler just by the way they cranked over. Chryslers had an almost unmistakable sound when being started up (reduction gear starter--will never forget it).
Today? they all sound like cheap plastic crap. Engines made out of aluminium and if you had one overheat, the heads get warped. I visit junkyards often and most cars there are far newer than what's on the road--some 2011+ and up.
there's a GMC Acadia there that had the front end and most of the front interior obliterated (I was like, what the heck did they hit?!). I asked out of curiosity and they said "a deer"
A deer? Oh, I've seen deer hits before--mostly takes out the windshield and roof, but that Acadia was literally obliterated. Did they hit the poor soul at 90+ MPH or something? Had one of those grilles I think too. Boxy square + hit anything = total annihilation.
Today? they all sound like cheap plastic crap. Engines made out of aluminium and if you had one overheat, the heads get warped. I visit junkyards often and most cars there are far newer than what's on the road--some 2011+ and up.
there's a GMC Acadia there that had the front end and most of the front interior obliterated (I was like, what the heck did they hit?!). I asked out of curiosity and they said "a deer"
A deer? Oh, I've seen deer hits before--mostly takes out the windshield and roof, but that Acadia was literally obliterated. Did they hit the poor soul at 90+ MPH or something? Had one of those grilles I think too. Boxy square + hit anything = total annihilation.
Have to admit, I didn't expect the thread to jump all the way to lack of understanding on vehicle safety standards. But here we are.
Are you two being deaf on purpose because you like to disagree and try to spin people up?
What safety standards mandate having the sculpted, decorative/eggcart bumper cover (fascia) be the outermost-projecting surface to first touch/contact something in a slow speed contact, having a high potential to leave a mark or broken plastic, instead of the “old school” (think: before Audi’s badge/shield grille) where the typical plastic bumper cover fascia seen in showrooms was designed to be unique and attractive and not obtrusive...ones designed with a slightly rounded surface that would be the first to contact an other similar bumper cover surface, distributing the contact force and usually resulting in zero marks or proof that there was even a contact? Please finally realize the discussion is about low-speed contact where only the plastic bumper cover fascia is flexed slightly but enough to leave a mark sometimes, and not deep enough to engage the needed pedestrian/passenger safety crumple features.There are a multitude of examples in today’s showrooms where an automaker has finally moved on from copy-catting Audi‘s badge/shield grille bumper cover fascia while meeting all required safety standards.
I see great similarity between many of today’s form-first function-second oversized eggcart grille automotive bumper cover fascias and certain form-first aspects in app/website/interface elements discussed here. Take a refined, mature thing that’s well beyond the innovation/invention opportunity phase, and couple it with designers/companies needing to make a statement and/or justify their office hours, and, voila! iOS7! Flat Design! Material Design. Auto designs where every nook and cranny is a bit over-stylized, sometimes to the point of distraction.
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I think it was funny a page or so back where folks thought we wanting sites to go back to the good design of ~2012 equating to going back to the Geocities era of 1996. That's a bit of a stretch! 90s website design was about as awful as current website design; the only differences being that instead of having comic sans, flashing 'under construction' banners, hit counters and animated GIFs, we have ads posing as 'fake' download buttons, ads looking like fake virus pop-ups, and UI elements with a mind of their own and wanting to disappear for no reason like when I tried logging into the SiriusXM site.
People have made the jump when I mention wanting skeuo back being the same as me wanting System 6 back or DOS back. No, not even close. Some things improved since then. What we have NOW is more like going back to DOS or DeskMate or Windows 1.x only in higher resolution. It was garbage then and it's garbage now! Wanting the designs that seemed far more future-forward and easy to use is NOT the same as wanting back floppy disks and hard drives that are as large as washing machines.
People have made the jump when I mention wanting skeuo back being the same as me wanting System 6 back or DOS back. No, not even close. Some things improved since then. What we have NOW is more like going back to DOS or DeskMate or Windows 1.x only in higher resolution. It was garbage then and it's garbage now! Wanting the designs that seemed far more future-forward and easy to use is NOT the same as wanting back floppy disks and hard drives that are as large as washing machines.