Ask any 16 year old (like my son), who came of age having no context for what the windows 95 UI even looked like. Shocker, he vastly prefers flat interfaces, ie. like the design of Notion.
The problem I see in this github redesign has nothing to do with the fact that it's flat. It's tougher to use because it's just bad design. The three columns make it insanely dense in terms of information (eliminates any hierarchy) and adds in weird red underlines (which typically mean "error") for no reason. Also the button styles are all inconsistent in the final version.
The first part of the article was great, the second part he started going off the reservation. I think he's strong in terms of a UX thinking but lacks the skills of visual designer who would better implement his thinking visually.
I really, really hate that 99% of all UX designers are basically graphic designers who are good with visual flourish but without the tiniest bit of interest into half a century worth of HCI research into what makes interfaces visually easy to read. So they end up with whatever graphical look is hip without understanding the usability consequences. That may make a page look good as a whole in the "conforms to current graphic design trends", but it destroys the ability to organize the individual elements.
EDIT: Also, skeuomorphism when done right can be pretty, and if you really want you can still combine it "flat" design by using hints of shadows and depth for better readability - look at games like Snake Bird for examples of that. In general I agree with Bret Victor that the best place to look for good interface design these days is successful computer games, because if it doesn't feel right to play (that is: interact) with, the designers tend to throw it out, and it is the most likely place to see experimental interface design.
I am a designer and one of my favourite websites uses the browsers default theme.
Designers can run into the danger of rationalizing changes to fit the visual goal they want to reach instead of the other way around. Form surely should follow function — but it should also follow social convention and usage.
This guy is right that to a non-git person the commit mrssages make no sense. I remember when I started using it and asked myself why the discriptions of the directories are so weird.
Now that I use git I’d rather have them. Our designer here is rather quick in judging it’s usefullnes. These messages describe the state of your remote repository.
I am mostly fine with the proposed menu changes, but again throwing out useful things like the edit button or the fork numbers is not a good idea. This is exactly the class of things you wanna see when you open the main page of a repo and there is not much elsewhere where it would make sense.
If I had to redesign github, I’d first spend a fair time assessing what works and what doesn’t, then reorganize the thing and only in the end decide on how to redesign it. Removing existing functionality is always a thing that should be very well considered.
You probably won't be downvoted because of the audience bias here, but that's like saying "I really hate that 99% of all engineers are basically code monkeys with zero understanding of...[insert thing here]"
It sounds like you've simply worked with bad designers and/or got burned by a bad redesign of a product you use. Sorry. Just know you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
First, you seem to be confused about what skeumorphism is. You're arguing about shadows. Skeuomorphism is not about shadows. Skeuomorphism is when you design a digital interface to mimic the old "real world" task it is designed to replace. Like how Apple Books used to have a literal 3d bookshelf as part of the interface.
Moving away from this is not a "trend." It is the natural progression of technology. When more people read words on screens than they do on paper, the bookshelf ceases to be an affordance--it just becomes distracting visual noise.
Shadows play a large role in most modern "flat" interfaces. Material design is just one example. Not sure what your point is here?
EDIT: Also, no, I did not misunderstand what skeuomorphism is, your own definition of it is what is too limited. Using fake depth and shadows on a design element to give it a 3D look like a real-world button is a form of skeuomorphism, because it relies on an understanding of real-world buttons that can be pushed.
Being vaguely angry about "young designers" and their "hip flat interfaces" is a common trigger on HN. I've seen it here countless times, and its rarely insightful. The argument is rooted in a the fallacy that designers only care about making "pretty" things.
Likewise, I've also heard it the same way towards engineers. 99% of engineers only care about cool technical solutions and not meeting users needs. When you've drawn such a broad stroke, it's not a basis for good discussion...just a flamewar.
> Using fake depth and shadows on a design element to give it a 3D look like a real-world button is a form of skeuomorphism, because it relies on an understanding of real-world buttons that can be pushed.
Note that these effects are always on objects that have interactive behavior with real-life analogies. Windows for example can be "picked up" and "moved". It casts shadows to mimic the idea of one window being in front of another. The mock-up tabs in the Win95 interface can be clicked on and also mimic real-life tabbed file folders.
Yet at the same time, a table does not feature any drop shadow or fake depth effects. A table cell doesn't have a real-life analogy of an object that can be picked up and moved around. It does feature a visible grid to help eye saccades.
Look up the history of the desktop metaphor. It's based on actual physical desktops. You know, the ones in administration with paper folders which contain files. For most modern people it is skeuomorphism hiding in plain sight.
Could you point me to some reading on shadow stuff please?
