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> I think we saw the same process of design evolution with modern flat designs. There was certainly a perception among some designers that it was difficult to build modern interfaces in part due to the cruft which had been accumulated over the years. Look at an iOS 6 device, for example; even though it's been only a few year, it looks utterly baroque to my eyes now.

It's funny, the more time goes by the more I miss iOS 6 and company. Comparing flat UI design to Swiss design from the 50s is missing the obvious difference that minimal Swiss design was about presenting information, not creating an interactive interface.

As the linked article points out, discarding affordances has a very real cost to someone learning the interface - it becomes harder to separate interactive elements from non interactive ones and harder to tell "on" from "off" (I STILL can't tell if iOS's shift is on by looking at it [1]). The desire to present information in a modern/minimalist way is at odds with this.

My personal opinion is that what you call "wider design context" is pure fashion. Yes, flat is fashionable, but it's just not as good at the job of communicating the nature of UI elements to the user.

[1] Edit: Just to add, Apple's difficulty with making the state of the shift key obvious is a microcosm of this overall problem. The expressive power of flat design language is so limited that indicating the state of a single element is problematic despite several attempts. iOS 9 finally solves this by changing the case of every letter on the keyboard to make it obvious.

Comparing flat UI design to Swiss design from the 50s is missing the obvious difference that minimal Swiss design was about presenting information, not creating an interactive interface.

Yes – they're different. Obviously so – there's 60 years between here and there. The point is to compare the minimalist approach, and point out that there is precedent for it. There is no absolute, guaranteed, 100% 'ideal' user interface, and it's something that we are still working on – iterating on design is how we do that.

it becomes harder to separate interactive elements from non interactive ones and harder to tell "on" from "off" (I STILL can't tell if iOS's shift is on by looking at it). The desire to present information in a modern/minimalist way is at odds with this.

The iOS shift key is a good example of where this had failed (and I do hope it is fixed). But here's an alternative take – presenting information in a minimal fashion can help to draw attention to interactivity, rather than distract from it, thanks to the elimination of visual noise. The point is, it's far from clear what the best approach is.

My personal opinion is that what you call "wider design context" is pure fashion. Yes, flat is fashionable, but it's just not as good at the job of communicating the nature of UI elements to the user.

I don't think that's a case, or that such design can be called a 'fad'. Design is still an evolving field – devices and the way we use them is changing, and design is no different. I won't deny that there's an element of fashion, in the sense that the popularity of design styles can influence other designers. But isn't that equally explainable as a desire to avoid completely 'off the wall' interfaces that will be unfamiliar to users?

FWIW, I don't find flat interfaces to be an issue. Metro, for example, was simple and elegant, while allowing for useful approaches to clearly displaying and exploring information. And the iOS approach, though it has inconsistencies, actually makes a lot of sense, with the 'content is king' and 'depth through translucency' approaches. Most of the problems with the latter appear to be to do with the expression of state.

> And the iOS approach, though it has inconsistencies, actually makes a lot of sense, with the 'content is king' and 'depth through translucency' approaches.

I think that's the key difference. The 'content is king' approach is great for consuming visual content but less good for applications that are not about content consumption but about interaction. If I'm reading a website, I want the UI chrome to get out of the way and not distract me visually - on the other hand if I'm trying to reschedule something in my calendar I want the options and interaction points available to me to be obvious so that I can make the change quickly and accurately.

> Comparing flat UI design to Swiss design from the 50s is missing the obvious difference that minimal Swiss design was about presenting information, not creating an interactive interface.

What about Microsoft, one of the first companies to bring flat design to phones? Their motto for Windows Phone 7 was "Content before chrome".

See my other reply on this as well [1].

One interesting nuance here is that "content" actually refers to visual content. I think maybe that's why so many here are expressing their frustration with the Music app. The content in question is NOT visual, but the UI is still designed with the same UX philosophy that tries to emphasize visual content instead of favouring richer interaction.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10206240

Well said. Many of us saw this instantly when this fad hit; you have expressed it very well.

For a comparison to a minimal design that has to support interaction consider the 606 Universal Shelving System [1] designed by Dieter Rams. Note that even though it's minimalist, every openable door/shelf/drawer has affordance that indicate where and how to open it - whether they're handles, holes for your hand or ridges you can grab onto.

Modern UI design has pushed past this stage of minimalism into something that's user hostile. Like those shelf doors where you have to push one side or the other to make the door pop out a bit and become actually grabbable - and it's not clear which side of the door needs to be pushed.

[1] https://d2lsod3xpjaepj.cloudfront.net/files/assets/1000/219/...

Take a look back as Swiss design from the 50s, for example. Lots of use of minimalism, bold colour, simple typography (Helvetica, even!). It's remarkably similar in some senses; one of the reasons it became popular was because of the perception that design had become fussy and overburdened by ornamental detail.

Those people were designing tangible objects, not computer programs.

At some point it's going to occur to someone that software is a different kind of thing that requires different kinds of controls. But it hasn't happened yet. We're still debating which archaic school of design we should be slavishly adhering to.