m0xEE on Nostr: Those scroll buttons in Win95 look awfully like the buttons on your keyboard, don't ...
Those scroll buttons in Win95 look awfully like the buttons on your keyboard, don't you think?
Yes and this looks disgusting! The gradients are highly relevant because that is how you add depth and achieve the "pseudo 3d" effect. In earlier Windows buttons do not use gradients for one good reason — that UI was designed when your average computer could display 16 colours at best, they didn't have the luxury to use gradients. Since then no one touched that for quite some time.
Windows Luna (which we can see in the screenshot) on the other hand relies on gradients heavily — so does Apple's Aqua. You have chosen a screenshot quite conveniently, but it's just an amalgamation of bad design ideas (A KDE theme? Seriously, man?!). However, this isn't what preceded the "flat design" — Luna and Aqua did, both relied on gradients for adding depth.
The problem with what Apple did wasn't that the UI elements became flat, but eliminating the colour coding
Look at specimens 2 and 3 — this is Finder in 10.6 and 10.7, look at the sidebar. Notice something? The colours are gone, you can't rely on that anymore — you have to actually read into captions. This is why I like using colour emojis in TUI software by the way — unlike teeny-tiny nerdfont icons, which serve no other purpose but aesthetics, they are colourful — they serve as visual hints. But I have digressed, let's go back to Finder.
In addition to eliminating colours, the pictograms in the top bar buttons were made lower contrast too. The skeuomorphism and the gradients are still there — but it's already barely usable.
The same happened to iTunes and other software. The problem was further intensified in later versions by using thinner and less readable fonts. And translucency that made the wallpaper colours shine through turned the interface in an utter clusterfuck.
Zune was never low-contrast and had clearly legible fonts. Want to make a button more prominent — no need to make it "pseudo 3d", just add a border and use well-contrasting colours. That's exactly what Windows 8 does by the way — it features colours quite heavily, a software launcher with huge colourful buttons is the best you can come up with, but users were like: "Ba-a-aw, give me my Start button back!" 🤦
Now look at window decorations in the final screenshot: Luna-style gradients are completely gone, but the close button — the one you are likely looking for, still stands out because it's, you know… red.
Neither Windows 8, nor Zune ever had the low contrast problem.
Ergo, "flat" interfaces are cool and unlike the blast from the 80s made with 16 colours or less in mind, they look modern. Colour coding is very important and helps you find stuff faster than reading into captions in light grey font of hairline weight over translucent white background. Low-contrast interfaces just suck!
"Flat design" failed not because people want "lickable buttons" or have trouble finding them if they don't look like the ones on their keyboard, but because Microsoft dropped the ball, Apple was on the wrong track from the very beginning and Google… Everything that comes out of this company is so ugly that I'm not sure they aren't lying about even having a design department — they might be just asking interns to throw something together in the after-hours.
CC: lait accompli (nprofile…zqaw)
Yes and this looks disgusting! The gradients are highly relevant because that is how you add depth and achieve the "pseudo 3d" effect. In earlier Windows buttons do not use gradients for one good reason — that UI was designed when your average computer could display 16 colours at best, they didn't have the luxury to use gradients. Since then no one touched that for quite some time.
Windows Luna (which we can see in the screenshot) on the other hand relies on gradients heavily — so does Apple's Aqua. You have chosen a screenshot quite conveniently, but it's just an amalgamation of bad design ideas (A KDE theme? Seriously, man?!). However, this isn't what preceded the "flat design" — Luna and Aqua did, both relied on gradients for adding depth.
The problem with what Apple did wasn't that the UI elements became flat, but eliminating the colour coding
Look at specimens 2 and 3 — this is Finder in 10.6 and 10.7, look at the sidebar. Notice something? The colours are gone, you can't rely on that anymore — you have to actually read into captions. This is why I like using colour emojis in TUI software by the way — unlike teeny-tiny nerdfont icons, which serve no other purpose but aesthetics, they are colourful — they serve as visual hints. But I have digressed, let's go back to Finder.
In addition to eliminating colours, the pictograms in the top bar buttons were made lower contrast too. The skeuomorphism and the gradients are still there — but it's already barely usable.
The same happened to iTunes and other software. The problem was further intensified in later versions by using thinner and less readable fonts. And translucency that made the wallpaper colours shine through turned the interface in an utter clusterfuck.
Zune was never low-contrast and had clearly legible fonts. Want to make a button more prominent — no need to make it "pseudo 3d", just add a border and use well-contrasting colours. That's exactly what Windows 8 does by the way — it features colours quite heavily, a software launcher with huge colourful buttons is the best you can come up with, but users were like: "Ba-a-aw, give me my Start button back!" 🤦
Now look at window decorations in the final screenshot: Luna-style gradients are completely gone, but the close button — the one you are likely looking for, still stands out because it's, you know… red.
Neither Windows 8, nor Zune ever had the low contrast problem.
Ergo, "flat" interfaces are cool and unlike the blast from the 80s made with 16 colours or less in mind, they look modern. Colour coding is very important and helps you find stuff faster than reading into captions in light grey font of hairline weight over translucent white background. Low-contrast interfaces just suck!
"Flat design" failed not because people want "lickable buttons" or have trouble finding them if they don't look like the ones on their keyboard, but because Microsoft dropped the ball, Apple was on the wrong track from the very beginning and Google… Everything that comes out of this company is so ugly that I'm not sure they aren't lying about even having a design department — they might be just asking interns to throw something together in the after-hours.
CC: lait accompli (nprofile…zqaw)