On the rise of digital design

For those who would like to read more about the design philosophy of Metro, I would recommend "Brave NUI World" (Wixon).

Another book "The Mobile Frontier"(Hinman) briefly summarizes NUIs in Chapter 2, and concludes with an excellent interview with Mike Kruzeniski (Creative director at Microsoft in the Windows Phone Design Studio).

Hinman describes our current situation as being stuck in a chasm between GUIs and NUIs, with designers taking entrenched metaphors from GUIs and attempting to apply them to gestural interfaces and NUIs.

Hinman, Wixon, and Kruzeniski argue that skeuomorphic designs are insufficient for ephemeral and networked information.

Essentially, "Authentically Digital" means "content is the interface". Its a shift to focusing on the interaction, not the interface. Kruzeniski cites Photosynth's UI as an example of where mobile UIs are going.

As an Android developer since 2009, Windows Phone has me pretty excited from a technological standpoint. Android and iOS are essentially WIMPs with desktop metaphors. Maybe iOS has more skeuomorphism. But I see Android's Holo as simply a theme, not a fundamental difference in the UI of the system. Just lipstick on a pig, err WIMP, essentially.

Interestingly, if I would've read the discussion out of context, I definitely would have thought the author meant digital as shadowy and gradienty, and analog as flat.

The progress in of design clearly follows growth and adoption curves.

Early designs are 'analog' because users have no frame of reference. Components become increasingly stylized over time as analog parts become distractions rather than aids. Now we're back to digital.

I imagine the same will happen to the next revolutionary consumer technology.

Google glass? Who knows.

A good read for sure. It's not just a style, in order to differentiate themselves from Apple, MS and Google went with the 'digital' or 'flat' design. We can argue if they ever even could, were it not for Apple and the iPhone, but 'flat dsign' works really well! The biggest winner is the user. We're seeing a "maturing" of mobile design. I can't wait to see Apple's response.

What is exactly is "digital" about a design language that has been used for decades in the real world in parks, airports, roads, and so on as signage? To me that just seems like a "flat" variation of skeumorphism.