For years google (and many members of the design community) made a very successful argument that android apps should look and act like android apps, and iOS apps should look and act like iOS apps and web apps should act like web apps. Trying to achieve design consistency across platforms was going to annoy your users. Instead you should strive for _branding_ consistency across platforms and use native interaction patterns.
A significant problem for Android has been iOS designs just copied over without adapting to the platform. The apps look and feel weird. As a user I find them confusing and frustrating to use. However progress was being made and people were starting to understand that if you want to build for Android you are going to need to design for Android.
Material throws that out the window. It says it right there in the goals[1]: "Develop a single underlying system that allows for a unified experience across platforms and device sizes."
IF we take it as given that our apps should look the same on all platforms, then why choose Material? Because I know my customers are going to say: "We have this great iOS design sitting right here, that we have already paid to have built. Lets use that! Besides we don't want to re-code our iOS app to suit Android". Or, they will come up with their own cross platform design to "differentiate themselves" and stand out.
[1] - http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introducti...
I'm guessing that the strategic advantage is to cut off Apple's knees. Apple's key differentiator has been design; this filters down into all the apps written for their platform, so that consumers say they choose iOS "because the apps are better-designed". Google wants a critical mass of iOS & web developers to choose Material instead, and make the Material design good enough that users won't prefer native iOS apps over Material apps. Then iOS becomes a fragmented mess of native, Material, and Cordova/PhoneGap apps, while Android is all unified Material design down to the OS, and mobile websites just look like Android.
IMHO it's brilliant strategically, though it's kinda dick-ish toward Apple. There are a couple huge unknowns though, like whether startup founders will adapt Material, whether those that do become large mobile successes, and whether Apple will even allow Material apps into the app store (they've been known to ban PhoneGap apps before for not following native look & feel guidelines).
Frankly though, I can't see any of your huge unknowns ever coming to pass. Almost all startup founders and designers I know use iPhones. Many still have trouble understanding why they should pay attention to Android design at all. If material ever does start to pick up momentum on iOS I can see Apple wielding the ban hammer liberally. Everything they have done in the past shows they are not shy about removing apps they feel aren't in Apple's best interests.
Though typically I disagree with what he has to say John Gruber of daring fireball seems to think the same way I do:
"If there’s a hitch, it’s that Google seems to be promoting this as a cross-platform design framework — a way to design just one interface for both iOS and Android. Google’s own apps for iOS already feel like weird moon man apps; now they’re encouraging third-party developers to follow their style rather than iOS’s."
"The design team at Google felt the need to come up with a more coherent look and feel that could be applied across all of its products, from Android to Chrome OS to the web."
Yep. Case in point: the Windows 8 "Metro" fiasco.
So, over the past few weeks I've been asking a few friends and family what they think of things like iOS 7, Windows 8, flat styling on web sites, and the like.
Quite a few responses to my completely unscientific study have been downright negative, such as "boring", "childish", or "dumbed down". "I can't find anything any more" was probably the most common form of complaint about behaviour rather than style, particularly regarding Windows 8 and the UI formerly known as Metro. Some people have been more moderate, for example giving two-way comments like "this might work well on a touch screen but it's awkward on my laptop" or "it's very simple".
Most telling to me is that absolutely no-one has actually come down in favour of either iOS 7 or Windows 8 overall so far, while I know at least one person who is trying to return a brand new iPad after a week because they "hated it" and several who have at some point in the recent past bought a device and either chosen Windows 7 over Windows 8 or actively downgraded after purchasing. People are literally avoiding or even returning or rapidly reselling new devices just to avoid these kinds of UIs.
I'm sad, though unsurprised, to see Google following Microsoft and Apple down this evolutionary dead end. As others have commented in this discussion, it seems like reducing everything to the least common denominator. To me, it also seems like promoting tools that make it cheap and quick to build software and web sites with maximum reach -- essentially, a direct commercial advantage -- rather than promoting tools that help you build software and web sites that are any good.
> I think that material is great design,
> but terrible strategy and in the end
> may land up resulting in the Android
> design space being worse, not better.
All I wanted to do earlier was drop the pin at my current location (which Google Maps couldn't divine due to no GPS) and then "Search Nearby" for eating places.
Well the pin has gone and now all you get is the street view thingy (yay?) and search nearby is also absent unless you're on a GPS device which can pinpoint your location.
I tried to use Bing Maps but they have been copying Google Maps too closely therefore have also removed the droppable pin (?).
Sure; to each their own and "wonderful" is a subjective notion, but it is a fact that the new Google Maps hid/removed functionality from the main screen [1].
It is also a fact that these design choices in effect force users to learn longer workflows/roundabouts for less functionality than before. And it is also a fact that some users are opting out as a result.
The tractable question then is whether the improved use cases you cite are so "wonderful" and valuable for a large enough set of users, they are worth the collateral damage imposed upon the broader userbase.
[1] http://www.digital-geography.com/short-announce-the-new-goog...
- It trying to introduce me to hidden gestures for "see more results!" when I'm driving. Sorry guys, using maps is not really the time for a tutorial, I'm in the middle of a task! - Re-routing. The new maps seems to re-route me, more often, and more often incorrectly, than the old maps did. - It also gives me different route results on my Glass than on my Phone. WTF?
/me
goes to maps.google.com
clicks on a random area of the map
a "location" card pops up with lat/long and estimated name
clicks on the card to validate the location
a second card pops up below with a street view shot,
"photos", "explore this area" with "search nearby" and
"getting around" with traffic and travel options
a third "quick facts" card is slid below
clicks on "search nearby" and types "restaurants"
Seriously.
> Also possible: type "restaurants near whatever", or simply "restaurants", which scopes the request on the current viewport.
This appears to work in the app as well, though.
...except for those times where it doesn't, and instead decides to return only the closest result for something. This is especially problematic for regional stores that have multiple locations. If I'm near one but want to meet someone at another Google apparently wants me to go to the close one and ask them for an address.
Edit: Look at this screenshot/mockup: http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/google-materi... - Battery and antenna certainly aren't the pieces of information we want the user to focus on, yet they really stand out simply because they are so bulky, at least compared to the other UI elements.
Edit 2: The screenshot also shows one of the things I like most about Material/L: Text elements are finally neatly aligned. Randomly aligned text elements are among my top pet peeves.
> Battery and antenna certainly aren't the pieces of information we want the user to focus on...
Stop telling me what I should be focusing on! Stop acting as if a simple icon is reaching out of the screen and dragging my eyeballs toward it, like I have to be protected from this horrible, "distracting" icon by sanding away all of its distinctiveness and making it blur into the background, making it useless!
When I need to know what my battery charge is, or what my signal strength is, I look at the icons, and they need to be distinct and clear! When I'm finished doing that, guess what--I don't look at them, and they are not a problem! It's not as if the stock Android battery and antenna icons are flashing and twirling around!
Stop it with this minimalist dogma! It's madness, and these self-appointed design "experts" are dragging the whole industry down with them in their mindless pursuit of blandness and their personal ideal of beauty--which they put upon an altar and worship, while ignoring usefulness!
A cell phone's screen is not a fashion statement, nor a work of art! It's a tool!
> A cell phone's screen is not a fashion statement, nor a work of art! It's a tool!
Exactly. And if the 4″ screen just threw all availabe information at you, lacking any visual hierarchy, it wouldn't be a very useful tool. Information design serves a purpose beyond making things look better.
And yes, good information design can mean making things look less slick. Helvetica Ultralight in iOS 7 definitely looks slick. And I guess we both agree that its readability is subpar. It is a very unfortunate UI design trend to value slickness higher than utility.
I don't want to make these icons any less useful, and I certainly don't want to hide them away. As a matter of fact, if Google were planning to do so, I would protest as loudly as you do. I'm not at fault for "everything that's wrong with software and UI design today." I'm just a friend of solid information design.
I'm not a visual or UX designer and don't have an answer, but these seem like two different categories of icons which could warrant alternate presentations.
As you can see, they are pretty compact. They even overlap each other, kinda.
How have their APIs improved to allow developers to easily animate things in the way they demonstrated?
It's great to have a strong design direction, but providing the APIs to make it easy to realise that design is just as important.
http://developer.android.com/preview/material/animations.htm...
For example the play button jumping out would probably be a single call to ViewAnimationUtils.createCircularReveal()
One of the problems with the old Holo design language was that people were doing great things with it, but much of it had to be custom made. The API's simply weren't meant to be stretched and pulled in the directions people were going. At the moment it appears that this is one of the major problems Material is addressing.
Google's opinion seems to be "It doesn't have to be intuitive because you'll eventually learn it".
This is sort of the middle ground. I think the pendulum has swung too far with the Windows and Metro design (and I do commend MS for being bold and going for it, that was fantastic I think). But now I think the pendulum has swung slightly back to a little more skeumorphic design, a little more shadows here and there, use some basic textures. Still flat not fake 3D buttons that look like ancient light switches but paper -- something in between.
I can't wait to see more.
http://blog.tobiasandtobias.com/post/37179466962/in-defense-...
Excerpt: Even ‘digital natives’ live in the physical world. We start learning how it works before we ever touch a computer, and even the most dedicated nerd spends more time interacting with physical objects than with digital interfaces. It doesn’t take additional learning to know that an object casting a shadow on another is in front of that other, for example. Failing to leverage that existing knowledge is tantamount to shutting down whole swathes of users’ brains.
A company can have several guides and guidelines on similar topics.
http://adage.com/images/random/0209/pepsi-arnell021109.pdf
which, while full of similar sounding "nonsense" nevertheless became Pepsi's new design.
Now Google is acknowledging this deficiency of Flat design. See: http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/... They have a page titled "Dimensionality affords interaction." Google is bringing back some dimensionality because a pure flat UI is harder to figure out.
"I initially thought about Windows’ Metro design upon seeing the new UI, but it looks like they have added their own spin on it."
I am glad people are giving Microsoft a well deserved credit. And to think Google's top designer was bashing Metro in past. Now we just need Jonny Ive to confess.
