Why is website design so awful today, generally?

[Tozovac]

Thanks for the help if I keep blowing the terminology. However, why are articles, even from Apple, calling permanently assigning a desktop view to a given site a new feature? I never once experienced returning to a site later and be given a desktop version on my iPhone or iPad. I always had to re-request “show desktop version.”

 

[Tozovac]

The fact that a website is now interactive and responsive adapts to countless devices, deals with all these different browsers, and people are complaining about a duplicate button says a lot. We've increased the complexity 100 fold from when I first loaded Macromedia Dreamweaver in 1998, but the complaints are pretty minor.

But if you want to appreciate a website’s full usefulness, nothing beats a desktop page view. More and more people with louder voices than me seem to finally be getting it.

7 good and 3 bad things in iPadOS

Great for power users, but it’s a steep learning curve to get there

www.theverge.com

 

[arn]

Thanks for the help if I keep blowing the terminology. However, why are articles, even from Apple, calling permanently assigning a desktop view to a given site a new feature? I never once experienced returning to a site later and be given a desktop version on my iPhone or iPad. I always had to re-request “show desktop version.”

tap top left and then hit website settings to save your preference.

 

[Tozovac]

tap top left and then hit website settings to save your preference.

View attachment 870428 View attachment 870429

Thanks! I actually already knew that - in the post you quoted I was refuting others' claims that the feature to save one's preference away from less-useful dumbed-down responsive design pages always existed before iOS13.

Seeing the recognition that a desktop view is often preferable even on a small screen, I'm continually pleased that someone at Apple has woken up and is de-Jony Ive'ing many of the less intuitive flat-design-derived too-unnecessarily minimal UI elements slowly but surely. Whereas before ios13 and after ios7, it was often a guessing game as to whether certain non-button-looking buttons were pressed or not, now with iOS13, I'm seeing the return back to more intuitive "button" or "this is depressed" indications. (It sure makes iPadOS and iOS 13’s bags a bit more tolerable)

From before iOS13: Without trying/exploring first, is it obvious that "All" or "Missed" pressed below?

Now with iOS13: it's more obvious (similar to before iOS7):



Also super welcomed was the recent move away from the dumb Jony Ive'd 5 circles for signal strength; I forget if that occurred in iOS10 or 11 or 12 or ?? but I'm glad it did.

Now if we can next move beyond this fascination with most everything being light blue or light grey on white (and return to grey indicating "not available" instead of using lighter light grey...) that will be icing on the "making websites and iOS and apps suck less" cake!

 

[supernova777]

the web was nicer to look at in 2004 when everything was still 11pt verdana
+ everything used macromedia flash and noone was worried about battery life or touch screens
and people actually made websites that interacted on mouse over

 

[Brien]

Mobile first usually means mobile only, that’s the main problem IMO.

Although in a few more years desktops will probably be dead (maybe browsers too, who knows) so meh.

 

[Tozovac]

Mobile first usually means mobile only, that’s the main problem IMO.

Exactly! What are the odds these genius decision makers who decide to minimalize away all the silly helpful UI elements and details never use large monitors that stay at home or in the office? Mobile-centric still sucks when applied to a desktop/laptop/mouse-driven platform built for productivity.

Although in a few more years desktops will probably be dead (maybe browsers too, who knows) so meh.

I doubt it. Mobile-centric flat low-contrast text whiteout minimalism is a fad that’s slowly fighting itself back to balanced normalcy.

As it’s been a while, here’s today’s user interface complaint. Think fast, where does this text list belong, the material above or below? I hate this war on context-providing frames/borders/zones. But programmers are slowly adding back in what Jony’s team had unnecessarily taketh away.

 

[Akrapovic]

Mobile-centric isn't a fab based on opinion (unlike style, which all come and go). It's based on pure numbers.

51 Mobile vs. Desktop Usage Statistics For 2024

Ever wondered who's the king in the realm of devices? Our mobile vs desktop usage statistics will reveal the answer.

techjury.net

As long as mobiles hits and conversions continue to beat desktop, and continue to stretch their lead, mobile centric websites will continue to dominate the web. It really is as simple as numbers.

 

[Tozovac]

Sadly, statistics can be used incorrectly and will be used incorrectly for the remainder of time. It’s what I’m doing on each device that matters more than the time spent. When I wish to be truly efficient and multitask, with many applications open simultaneously on one or two or three large screens, there are certain interface methods that work much better there than do on my iPhone 8. I’ll keep patiently watching certain things swinging back to the way that feels much more efficient, before designers were “inspired” to force-fit interfaces and websites to look a certain way on many different screens and computer types.

 

[smirking]

As long as mobiles hits and conversions continue to beat desktop, and continue to stretch their lead, mobile centric websites will continue to dominate the web. It really is as simple as numbers.

There still are corners where desktops dominate though. A lot of websites aimed at business and professional fields still tend to have very limited mobile visitors, but yeah for most consumer websites it's mobile mobile mobile and it's not even close.

Sadly, statistics can be used incorrectly and will be used incorrectly for the remainder of time.

Statistics can deceive, but you are flat out wrong about this one though. I wish you were right, because I hate mobile sites too, but my own first hand numbers back up what @Akrapovic referenced. Desktops are not an insignificant number of my visitors, but they're nowhere near the mobile segment for most kinds of sites. The bleed from desktops to mobile appears to have stabilized or at least slowed though. Desktop visitors are holding onto about a third of traffic on my larger consumer oriented sites. For a while it looked like they were headed for single digits.

I’ll keep patiently watching certain things swinging back to the way that feels much more efficient, before designers were “inspired” to force-fit interfaces and websites to look a certain way on many different screens and computer types.

My god, stop beating up on designers. They don't make most of these decisions and designing mobile interfaces is something that's super tedious (at least to me anyway). It's not as fun as designing a fully featured interface. You have no room to do anything so instead of being creative, it's a constant exercise in information budgeting. You spend hours trying to figure out what's the most important priority and if there's some way you could possibly fit two pieces of information into a space that only should allow one.

 

[Akrapovic]

Sadly, statistics can be used incorrectly and will be used incorrectly for the remainder of time.

We've been through this before. You're wrong. You will struggle to find any data which supports your stance. If you want to hold the opinion that desktops are better than you're entitled to that, and many will agree. But in terms of number of devices doing the hits, throughput and conversions - mobiles win. Almost every time. And the gap is growing.

You're wrong.

 

[Tozovac]

There still are corners where desktops dominate though. A lot of websites aimed at business and professional fields still tend to have very limited mobile visitors, but yeah for most consumer websites it's mobile mobile mobile and it's not even close.

Thanks. I so wish I could go back and rename the thread from "website design us awful today" to "minimalist flat interface design is generally awful today over less-minimalist website/app/OS design, and oh by the way, many mobile-prioritzed responsive design aspects aren't as great to work with on larger screens." If I can make the distinction that websites are generally great for content-intake while desktop apps are generally great for content creation, then my issue critique is when minimalist/flat aspects of mobile-focused website/app/OS design creep unnecessarily into the design of desktop/laptop-based applications. If it's just discussion on websites, and if most companies can only prioritize/fund so much on their development and support, then of course I can see prioritizing responsive/mobile design for mobile/iPad devices. A problem tho lies in much of the minimalist execution of portions of those responsive/mobile-centric designs, even on those mobile devices...

We've been through this before. You're wrong. You will struggle to find any data which supports your stance. If you want to hold the opinion that desktops are better than you're entitled to that, and many will agree. But in terms of number of devices doing the hits, throughput and conversions - mobiles win. Almost every time. And the gap is growing.

You're wrong.

Let's make sure we're addressing the same stance. Regardless of mobile or desktop-focused interfaces, at the root of it all, my stance (and the only data I need to point to) is the general increase in instances of frustration when using websites, apps, and operating systems after ~2013....the repeated instances of micro pauses when navigating thru flat, borderless design principles which, by the very definition of "flat design" is a reduction of detail. This detail reduction translates too often for me and many others into slowdowns from reduced obviousness & intuitiveness for the sake of a certain aesthetic....the tap-tap-tapping to drill down thru hamburger/ellipses icon in order to accomplish in 3 steps what used to take just 1, again for the sake of minimalist design and supposed "clean, distraction-free interface"...the scroll-scroll-scrolling to fully take in an overly-horizontal spread-out presentation with large hero images instead of a hero-less presentation with smart, efficient use of available space for intuitive use. The only data that should matter is my reduced instances of feeling "wow it just works" since 2013 and the increased instances of "why did they redesign it to do things that way when it was easier before." What are some of the excuses given for the minimalism and flatness, the overly-horizontal presentation, the clean interface and buried/hidden functions behind hamburgers? It's for quick-loading responsive design on small mobile devices often with "slower" data speeds than a wired desktop/laptop. Why responsive design? For adapting to so many different-sized mobile/iPad screes. Why the prioritization on mobile/iPad devices? Because of numbers of users. Resulting in simplification by carrying over those principles to larger screens, regardless of the work desired to be done on those larger screens... So when it comes time to put the mobile device down and take a break from taking in Facebook or Instagram content and go create some content or get some detailed analysis work done on a larger screen, we're too often forced to slog thru something like Windows 10 at work with its monochromatic, reduced-intuitive flat design that is generally disliked by most fellow co-workers ever since my company "upgraded" to Windows 10.

My god, stop beating up on designers. They don't make most of these decisions and designing mobile interfaces is something that's super tedious (at least to me anyway). It's not as fun as designing a fully featured interface. You have no room to do anything so instead of being creative, it's a constant exercise in information budgeting. You spend hours trying to figure out what's the most important priority and if there's some way you could possibly fit two pieces of information into a space that only should allow one.

Who then can I critique for allowing/implementing the things I (and others) complain about...borderless minimalism, reduced cues for actionable items, light colored low-contrast text on stark white backgrounds, hiding/burying common functions under a hamburger surrounded by lots of wasted white space or hero images...all are choices made by "someone."

This article below touches upon things rather nicely. https://getflywheel.com/layout/shouldnt-use-flat-design/

"Jules" in the comments hits some key points well. His last point is something I've championed often - that much of the "design stretches" starting around 2013, at a point where things "just worked" rather awfully well, are the result of designers stretching their legs to make things interesting for THEMSELVES by creating and prioritizing a reinvented aesthetic and army of new OS/website/app functional cues that THEY felt were a better way. Considering the virtual 100% revamp of UI cues in iOS7, was it really likely that every method prior to iOS7 was done poorly and then actually improved upon by iOS7? Or was there more of just a call to action for change, most prominently implemented via iOS7 which got adopted almost universally overnight because when Apple sneezes, everyone reaches for a kleenex or even their bare hand to wipe things down?

 

[cyb3rdud3]

Thanks. I so wish I could go back and rename the thread from "website design us awful today" to "minimalist flat interface design is generally awful today over less-minimalist website/app/OS design, and oh by the way, many mobile-prioritzed responsive design aspects aren't as great to work with on larger screens." If I can make the distinction that websites are generally great for content-intake while desktop apps are generally great for content creation, then my issue critique is when minimalist/flat aspects of mobile-focused website/app/OS design creep unnecessarily into the design of desktop/laptop-based applications. If it's just discussion on websites, and if most companies can only prioritize/fund so much on their development and support, then of course I can see prioritizing responsive/mobile design for mobile/iPad devices. A problem tho lies in much of the minimalist execution of portions of those responsive/mobile-centric designs, even on those mobile devices...



Let's make sure we're addressing the same stance. Regardless of mobile or desktop-focused interfaces, at the root of it all, my stance (and the only data I need to point to) is the general increase in instances of frustration when using websites, apps, and operating systems after ~2013....the repeated instances of micro pauses when navigating thru flat, borderless design principles which, by the very definition of "flat design" is a reduction of detail. This detail reduction translates too often for me and many others into slowdowns from reduced obviousness & intuitiveness for the sake of a certain aesthetic....the tap-tap-tapping to drill down thru hamburger/ellipses icon in order to accomplish in 3 steps what used to take just 1, again for the sake of minimalist design and supposed "clean, distraction-free interface"...the scroll-scroll-scrolling to fully take in an overly-horizontal spread-out presentation with large hero images instead of a hero-less presentation with smart, efficient use of available space for intuitive use. The only data that should matter is my reduced instances of feeling "wow it just works" since 2013 and the increased instances of "why did they redesign it to do things that way when it was easier before." What are some of the excuses given for the minimalism and flatness, the overly-horizontal presentation, the clean interface and buried/hidden functions behind hamburgers? It's for quick-loading responsive design on small mobile devices often with "slower" data speeds than a wired desktop/laptop. Why responsive design? For adapting to so many different-sized mobile/iPad screes. Why the prioritization on mobile/iPad devices? Because of numbers of users. Resulting in simplification by carrying over those principles to larger screens, regardless of the work desired to be done on those larger screens... So when it comes time to put the mobile device down and take a break from taking in Facebook or Instagram content and go create some content or get some detailed analysis work done on a larger screen, we're too often forced to slog thru something like Windows 10 at work with its monochromatic, reduced-intuitive flat design that is generally disliked by most fellow co-workers ever since my company "upgraded" to Windows 10.



Who then can I critique for allowing/implementing the things I (and others) complain about...borderless minimalism, reduced cues for actionable items, light colored low-contrast text on stark white backgrounds, hiding/burying common functions under a hamburger surrounded by lots of wasted white space or hero images...all are choices made by "someone."

This article below touches upon things rather nicely. https://getflywheel.com/layout/shouldnt-use-flat-design/

"Jules" in the comments hits some key points well. His last point is something I've championed often - that much of the "design stretches" starting around 2013, at a point where things "just worked" rather awfully well, are the result of designers stretching their legs to make things interesting for THEMSELVES by creating and prioritizing a reinvented aesthetic and army of new OS/website/app functional cues that THEY felt were a better way. Considering the virtual 100% revamp of UI cues in iOS7, was it really likely that every method prior to iOS7 was done poorly and then actually improved upon by iOS7? Or was there more of just a call to action for change, most prominently implemented via iOS7 which got adopted almost universally overnight because when Apple sneezes, everyone reaches for a kleenex or even their bare hand to wipe things down?

? Well doen, you’ve found one person in the comments section back from 2015 who agrees with you ?

Even the author of that article it much more moderate and balanced.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with preferring something different, so far from what I’ve seen in the examples they have been cases of wrong implementation nor a wrong design school.

I can’t belief you still have a bee in your bonnet about this. You could have had plenty of time to develop your own style guide and show the world what an expert you are and how it should be done. Now that would be amazing and very constructive. You’d be jet setting around the world and be a guest lecturer at every design college and developers conference ??

 

[smirking]

Who then can I critique for allowing/implementing the things I (and others) complain about...borderless minimalism, reduced cues for actionable items, light colored low-contrast text on stark white backgrounds, hiding/burying common functions under a hamburger surrounded by lots of wasted white space or hero images...all are choices made by "someone."

I've already answered who that person is numerous times. Get a job where you're responsible for design. After you're drunk on the unfettered power you're given to make crazy decisions all on your own, come on back and report how it felt.

 

[Akrapovic]

I've already answered who that person is numerous times. Get a job where you're responsible for design. After you're drunk on the unfettered power you're given to make crazy decisions all on your own, come on back and report how it felt.

You mean designers don't get to wildly flail CSS at walls? Are you even doing your job right if you aren't making it all up yourself?

Since my post last year about my job (Emergency Management and Control Room Systems) I've since moved jobs...to a mobile app and web services company. Small but impressive company that's growing fast. I'm not part of app development (I'm doing internal systems) but watching the graphics designers, UX and UI designers conversing with clients and how they come to conclusions is interesting. Also looking at the stats for our own website and how this information is collected and analysed. All these people saying "Google Analytics doesn't tell you X", well, I think you'll find it does lol.

I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about this stuff (although far from an expert). But I'm learning a lot from watching the actual experts at work.

Tell you what @Tozovac , since you have the answer to everything, why don't you go make a website? Pick a website (say, I don't know, a news site) and go and make one. It doesn't need to function - doesn't need real articles. But you could achieve this with HTML and CSS and maybe a tiny tiny bit of JavaScript as a static non-functional site. I'm actually interested in what you'd come up with.

I want a main news page, a generic article page and a feature article page. Once you're done, post it here to show us why your ideas are better. I'm genuinely interested in the result.

 

[smirking]

You mean designers don't get to wildly flail CSS at walls? Are you even doing your job right if you aren't making it all up yourself?

LOL. In too many places I've been, the real "design team" was the CEO or some Senior VP who gets increasingly irate until you give them the broken mess they demanded in the first place. You always try to sneak in some real design decisions and hope they don't notice that you actually did your job against their wishes, but in the end if the person signing the checks wants a turd, that's what they're gonna get.

 

[cyb3rdud3]

LOL. In too many places I've been, the real "design team" was the CEO or some Senior VP who gets increasing irate until you give them the broken mess they demanded in the first place. You always try to sneak in some real design decisions and hope they don't notice that you actually did your job against their wishes, but in the end if the person signing the checks wants a turd, that's what they're gonna get.

Hahaha too true.

We have strict accessibility laws and they are generally totally unaware. Or are also happy to away from their own branding guidelines because they think it looks better despite having.

but if that makes them happy and issue the check they can have it whichever way they want.

 

[Tozovac]

Mobile-centric isn't a fab based on opinion (unlike style, which all come and go). It's based on pure numbers.

51 Mobile vs. Desktop Usage Statistics For 2024

Ever wondered who's the king in the realm of devices? Our mobile vs desktop usage statistics will reveal the answer.

techjury.net

As long as mobiles hits and conversions continue to beat desktop, and continue to stretch their lead, mobile centric websites will continue to dominate the web. It really is as simple as numbers.

? Well doen, you’ve found one person in the comments section back from 2015 who agrees with you ?

Even the author of that article it much more moderate and balanced.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with preferring something different, so far from what I’ve seen in the examples they have been cases of wrong implementation nor a wrong design school.

I can’t belief you still have a bee in your bonnet about this. You could have had plenty of time to develop your own style guide and show the world what an expert you are and how it should be done. Now that would be amazing and very constructive. You’d be jet setting around the world and be a guest lecturer at every design college and developers conference ??

Yep, you’re right, there is just one other person in the world that feels like me. But thank you on the congrats! I don’t need to create a style guide, the better practices were in effect until they weren’t.
[automerge]1580902910[/automerge]

I've already answered who that person is numerous times. Get a job where you're responsible for design. After you're drunk on the unfettered power you're given to make crazy decisions all on your own, come on back and report how it felt.

Then those are the people to blame.
[automerge]1580903053[/automerge]

You mean designers don't get to wildly flail CSS at walls? Are you even doing your job right if you aren't making it all up yourself?

Since my post last year about my job (Emergency Management and Control Room Systems) I've since moved jobs...to a mobile app and web services company. Small but impressive company that's growing fast. I'm not part of app development (I'm doing internal systems) but watching the graphics designers, UX and UI designers conversing with clients and how they come to conclusions is interesting. Also looking at the stats for our own website and how this information is collected and analysed. All these people saying "Google Analytics doesn't tell you X", well, I think you'll find it does lol.

I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about this stuff (although far from an expert). But I'm learning a lot from watching the actual experts at work.

Tell you what @Tozovac , since you have the answer to everything, why don't you go make a website? Pick a website (say, I don't know, a news site) and go and make one. It doesn't need to function - doesn't need real articles. But you could achieve this with HTML and CSS and maybe a tiny tiny bit of JavaScript as a static non-functional site. I'm actually interested in what you'd come up with.

I want a main news page, a generic article page and a feature article page. Once you're done, post it here to show us why your ideas are better. I'm genuinely interested in the result.

I’ve said it many times, there’s no need to reinvent what worked awfully well generally before around 2013. As I’ve always said, I’m not talking about wanting green felt and wood grain. Just the UI principles apple adhered to before throwing them entirely out in 2013 and redoing everything.
[automerge]1580903117[/automerge]

LOL. In too many places I've been, the real "design team" was the CEO or some Senior VP who gets increasing irate until you give them the broken mess they demanded in the first place. You always try to sneak in some real design decisions and hope they don't notice that you actually did your job against their wishes, but in the end if the person signing the checks wants a turd, that's what they're gonna get.

I bet that’s frustrating when somebody demands something they want because they want it vs because it works well!
[automerge]1580903229[/automerge]

Hahaha too true.

We have strict accessibility laws and they are generally totally unaware. Or are also happy to away from their own branding guidelines because they think it looks better despite having.

Well now this is an interesting interesting post that may get us somewhere and inform me. What accessibility laws and practices were being broken or not addressed before iOS 7 for instance? How did iOS 7 specifically fix something that was broken?

 

[Akrapovic]

This thread is a hot mess. Apple appears to be the fall guy for every single website ever made since 2013. Why? Because iOS7 was flat. Proof appears to be random buzzwords used out of context. Facts and numbers are ignored. Invitations to investigate the issue further and learn what mobile-first, responsive design, parallax scrolling, UI, UX, and flat design terms actually mean is continually turned down, all because someone hates modern uIX - a randomly capitalised made up term.

We're well into trolling at this point.

 

[Tozovac]

This thread is a hot mess. Apple appears to be the fall guy for every single website ever made since 2013. Why? Because iOS7 was flat. Proof appears to be random buzzwords used out of context. Facts and numbers are ignored. Invitations to investigate the issue further and learn what mobile-first, responsive design, parallax scrolling, UI, UX, and flat design terms actually mean is continually turned down, all because someone hates modern uIX - a randomly capitalised made up term.

We're well into trolling at this point.

Why is it a hot mess? Because I haven’t convinced you or vice versa?

Funny, I don’t feel like you’re trolling me back, I feel like we’re having a discussion. What makes you so sure I didn’t investigate those leads? is it because I haven’t jumped ship and been completely convinced away from my feelings when navigating some (not all) apps or operating systems or websites that I find to be confusing at best and downright inefficient and counterproductive at times at worst, due to trends not seen before around 2013?

Why assign some harshness to Apple? Because for the past decade, they have been the chosen style leader that too many lemmings choose to follow for better or worse. You don’t disagree that the world of product packaging and the i packaging experience hasn’t changed because of them? You wouldn’t agree that hardware like the interior control panel of one of Chevy’s electric cars that was essentially an iPod, and most every Chinese made small consumer-electronics item to be glossy white hasn’t changed because of them? Even Microsoft morphed to hip casual jeans and untucked shirts and mock turtlenecks at high production stage shows like Apple.

Google also deserves “blame,” with material design that was forcibly made to be as different as possible from Apple at the time. In my opinion, Apple did things really well at the time, then google had to compete but not copy hundreIn my opinion, Apple did things really well at the time, then Google had to compete but not copy 100%, resulting in interface workarounds that just weren’t as good as Apple’s at the time. Similar for the Microsoft phone. Then it was almost as if Apple felt those two were the leaders and Apple downgraded to something similarly flat and less obvious and more minimalist, the “perfect storm” of software being led at the time by a minimalist hardware designer..

There’s sone good responsive design all over, even those presented on a desktop screen. Good responsive design is effortless and just works, and doesn’t make you wonder, hmmm why did they do that? But there still too much silliness for the sake of style that too often gets in the way of efficiency and intuitiveness. I’ve said it again, what is the helpfulness of faint thin low contrast grey text on bright white backgrounds that’s impossible to read for some especially outdoors? What’s the helpfulness of a virtual eradication of frames and borders around certain elements or info zones on the screen to help provide context for quick, intuitive absorption? In the highest sense, a line was drawn in 2013 after which minimalism, ultra minimalism that is, became the norm. Just, too often it felt like the designer wanting to stretch his legs more than the designer sticking to certain time-tested principles.

Having said that, I am continually happy to see Apple undoing much of the errors they implemented in iOS 7. With every operating system update, it seems they are veering away from super flat, vague interface elements that confounded me so much that horrible weekend in June 2013 when my iPhone 4 was ruined by iOS 7.

Have a good day!!

 

[Akrapovic]

Why is it a hot mess? Because I haven’t convinced you or vice versa?

Funny, I don’t feel like you’re trolling me back, I feel like we’re having a discussion. What makes you so sure I didn’t investigate those leads?

Because when presented with facts you will declare them irrelevant or incorrect, and then search back half a decade to find a single link which supports you, ignoring all other evidence. That isn't investigating - that's trying to re-enforce your opinion. You will ignore stats and figures collected by industry experts and used to optimise sites and say that stats are misused, as if that is somehow a relevant answer. You're not interested in any of the details in why things are done in certain ways.

This thread is an echo chamber. It has nothing to do with bad design now, and just a rant thread for you about how things were better in the old days. You even have people who do these jobs in this thread, trying to explain things to you, and all you do is say they are wrong and reply with buzzwords and make up acronyms with random capitalisation, usually utilising the letters I U and X. That's either trolling or stupidity, and it's clear you are not stupid, so it must be trolling.

I am sure there are many good ideas you have and many things you are right about, but the points are lost in these massive long rambling posts which don't make sense. Hidden behind incorrect terminology that seems made up at random, and protected by the stance that you are the one doing real work, and nobody else understands this.

Write less. Read more. If you don't like reading then go to YouTube, or even better, Udemy, and watch some courses. And if you're feeling really adventurous then go learn some HTML and CSS (those are pretty easy) and build something, make a blog and make some good points and start a trend.

 

[Tozovac]

Write less. Read more. If you don't like reading then go to YouTube, or even better, Udemy, and watch some courses. And if you're feeling really adventurous then go learn some HTML and CSS (those are pretty easy) and build something, make a blog and make some good points and start a trend.

Thank you for your advice. But think about what you said. Whether or not I'm using the right terminology, why should I take time to learn and then re-build and present something that would just basically be representative of interfaces that used to work awfully well ~7 years ago? I.e., back when (IMHO) the focus was on efficient, intuitive function first that, secondly, looked good or a certain way? That's contrasted to today's clearly-first focus on a minimalist appearance aesthetic where function often seems a force-fit shoehorned afterthought into that aesthetic, too often (IMHO) resulting ith clunky, inefficient, confusing, and compromised results? Perhaps my argument is simply that (IMHO) flat design when presented in a spread-out scroll-heavy low-contrast Responsive Design layout is too often unintuitive and/or inefficient (regardless of the device) when compared to what I sensed were interfaces designed with function first that was regardless of the resulting form.

A bit of left turn, but a little food for thought that follows my sentiments: Check out BMW's new and "improved" logo.

BMW’s new flat logo is everything that’s wrong with modern logo design

Introduced alongside the new i4 electric sedan concept.

www.theverge.com

This is just an emblem, but BMW is "upgrading" by taking a lot away. Something new for a short-term zing but seemingly with little concern as to what might have been traded away.
The general sentiment/opinion of the article is that certain key defining (useful) elements are removed but at the risk of a result less-defined than before.

As any good engineer or designer *should* consider for any new design direction, what would result if the direction were extended a bit further, even if just to test the robustness of that decision. How much more can be additionally taken away and still be left with something "useful” if not actually now detrimental, where I'll leave it up you to decide what "useful" here means.

Before ~2013, I'd use my iPad/iPhone and it just worked. There was nothing prompting me to stop and think and then critique. Soon I'll be able to say that before 2020 I'd see a BMW online and really not stop in my tracks or think too hard, but after 2020 I couldn't help but shake my head and remember what an attractive, heritage-rich emblem they used to use. Starbucks did something similar when they modernized the rings away and went to frameless, monochromatic logo. They instagram icon'd their logos just like many digital interfaces instagram logo'd their functional interfaces.

I'll patiently await the revolution back to good digital interface design. Or is that a made-up phrase that's too confusing to pick up on what I'm laying down?

 

[cyb3rdud3]

The revolution is already there, it is better smarter than ever before.

you simply aren’t willing to see the benefits and what it has given us and are being left behind with rose tinted glasses of “how good it used to be”. Which of-course it wasn’t at all.

 

[Tozovac]

The revolution is already there, it is better smarter than ever before.



you simply aren’t willing to see the benefits and what it has given us and are being left behind with rose tinted glasses of “how good it used to be”. Which of-course it wasn’t at all.

Oh the revolution has begun and thank goodness! Let’s be sure we’re talking the same shtuff. I’m not talking about 1650 compasses or woodgrain calendars. I’m talking about the types of interface details from which Apple is slowly backtracking after the mistake that was iOS 7. Fixing the shift lock key, for example. Decades of research based on human nature resulting in decades where light gray means an unavailable or non-selectable option...now it’s 50 shades of grey, white, or dark white for available options vs. unselected vs. the selected option.

Or similarly revising sharp-edge flat design “buttons” that, when one is selected, are hard to differentiate from their nearby similar-shaped options (which is particularly helpful when there are just 2 options).

It’s not that I see zero benefits. It’s that certain unnecessary and arbitrary steps backward based more on an appearance aesthetic than intuitive function often sour any benefits.

Things will return to function over form, I have little doubt.

 

[retta283]

My problem with the web is how bogged down it is with garbage ads and popups. Macworld is a terrible website. When I am attempting to read articles there are popups about offers from Macworld, that are coded poorly and often glitch out so the page stays dark and hard to see. Videos pop up and autoplay in the corner, usually with sound. Ads are also obtrusive, and it bogs down my browser, even on my 2019 iMac.

That's just one example. There are worse out there.