I’m a UI/UX designer myself and yes I prefer minimalism but as long as it doesn’t affect the workflow. Old iOS and macOS had some sorta spirit considering the fact that old hardware were much less capable. 2 main problems with current flat UIs are contrast and interactivity. Let me explain…
Contrast: back in the day the most UI elements were either black text on white background or white text on black background. Some kind of pattern was also added to the background to combat the blandness of the UI. Add some accent color for emphasis and that was pretty much it. Now, especially with the dark mode there are lots of light gray elements laying flat on darker gray background treated with some blur backdrop. Don’t get me wrong, blur backdrop is great for creating 3D visual hierarchy but it can get out of hand quite easily. Just imagine a vibrant background with a pale window containing text and try to focus on that text. Or in worse scenarios things like Apple Podcasts dialogs in macOS when you try to delete something, light gray button on a darker gray background, with red text!
Interactivity: who else misses the frosted glass effect on OS X Mountain Lion dock? Or the volume knob of iOS 6 reacting to the phone’s physical position? Now many can’t even differentiate a button from a popup menu from a text from a link. Shadows are absolutely pale and hard to see, even rare on iOS and iPadOS. Animations had a defined start and end like the folders in launchpad before Yosemite, now open a folder in launchpad, wait a bit and you have absolutely no idea where that came from. Everything has become bubbly and nonsense.
UI elements can be awesome again, with slight gradients, proper shadows, light effects, blur in new ways other than backdrop, taking benefits from the wallpaper colors (I don’t mean the Material U implementation by any means) and bevels…
Contrast: back in the day the most UI elements were either black text on white background or white text on black background. Some kind of pattern was also added to the background to combat the blandness of the UI. Add some accent color for emphasis and that was pretty much it. Now, especially with the dark mode there are lots of light gray elements laying flat on darker gray background treated with some blur backdrop. Don’t get me wrong, blur backdrop is great for creating 3D visual hierarchy but it can get out of hand quite easily. Just imagine a vibrant background with a pale window containing text and try to focus on that text. Or in worse scenarios things like Apple Podcasts dialogs in macOS when you try to delete something, light gray button on a darker gray background, with red text!
Interactivity: who else misses the frosted glass effect on OS X Mountain Lion dock? Or the volume knob of iOS 6 reacting to the phone’s physical position? Now many can’t even differentiate a button from a popup menu from a text from a link. Shadows are absolutely pale and hard to see, even rare on iOS and iPadOS. Animations had a defined start and end like the folders in launchpad before Yosemite, now open a folder in launchpad, wait a bit and you have absolutely no idea where that came from. Everything has become bubbly and nonsense.
UI elements can be awesome again, with slight gradients, proper shadows, light effects, blur in new ways other than backdrop, taking benefits from the wallpaper colors (I don’t mean the Material U implementation by any means) and bevels…
