{"id":12280,"date":"2015-09-14T12:03:29","date_gmt":"2015-09-14T16:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=12280"},"modified":"2015-09-14T12:03:29","modified_gmt":"2015-09-14T16:03:29","slug":"problems-with-ioss-flat-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/14\/problems-with-ioss-flat-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Problems With iOS&rsquo;s Flat Design"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cheerfulsw.com\/2015\/destroying-apples-legacy\/\">Amy Hoy<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"http:\/\/cheerfulsw.com\/2015\/destroying-apples-legacy\/\">\n<p>But a little faux leather isn&rsquo;t the problem. The problem is deeper:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>misusing metaphors (e.g. turning buttons into links)<\/li>\n<li>eliminating the only affordances that software can have &mdash; visual affordances<\/li>\n<li>using <em>fake<\/em> physical metaphors for <em>interactions<\/em>, such as using &ldquo;wheels&rdquo; for data entry <\/li>\n<li>eliminating information hierarchy &#8211; homogenizing spacing and typography, for &ldquo;visual tidiness&rdquo;<\/li>\n<li>giving <em>all<\/em> types of interface widgets the <em>same<\/em> visual appearance<\/li>\n<li>reusing the same interaction design for click UIs (on 13&#8243;-27&#8243; screens) and touch UIs (on 5&#8243; screens)<\/li>\n<li>tiny tap or click targets with invisible boundaries<\/li>\n<li>software and icons that all look the same<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And these mistakes are especially galling because they&rsquo;re exactly the kind of thing that Apple themselves used to rail against.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/pxlnv.com\/blog\/rosy-glasses\/\">Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"http:\/\/pxlnv.com\/blog\/rosy-glasses\/\"><p>Here&rsquo;s the thing: the Apple that Hoy describes hasn&rsquo;t existed for a very, very long time. Beginning around the introduction of OS X, Apple stopped following the HIG so strictly and started experimenting.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>I include these examples not to say that Hoy is wrong in her criticisms of recent iOS interface design, but to point out that the HIG was something that <em>was<\/em> frequently about aesthetics and trends. iTunes 5&rsquo;s UI wasn&rsquo;t a smooth grey because of research and interaction; it was because brushed metal stopped being trendy and started to look kind of, uh, <em>bad<\/em>. &ldquo;Unified&rdquo; windows in Tiger did not have a consistent use-case defined by the HIG, either.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>The problems with iOS&rsquo; UI aren&rsquo;t because it doesn&rsquo;t follow the HIG. It <em>rewrote<\/em> the HIG, establishing even greater consistency between apps.<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amy Hoy: But a little faux leather isn&rsquo;t the problem. The problem is deeper: misusing metaphors (e.g. turning buttons into links) eliminating the only affordances that software can have &mdash; visual affordances using fake physical metaphors for interactions, such as using &ldquo;wheels&rdquo; for data entry eliminating information hierarchy &#8211; homogenizing spacing and typography, for &ldquo;visual [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[77,31,469,904,1137],"class_list":["post-12280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-design","tag-ios","tag-ios7","tag-ios-8","tag-ios-9"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12281,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12280\/revisions\/12281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}