Won't it be very interesting if we are lucky enough to one day examine our own design trends through the lens of social change. What moral shift might be responsible for the trend toward flat design?
Speaking of civility, my touchstone design book is The Ice Palace That Melted Away, by Bill Stumpf (Aeron chair designer). The first chapter, on reflecting the wonder of flight in the experience, is the designer's answer to Louie CK.
In the book, the term "affordance" refers to any kind of opportunity for a user to exert leverage on a designed object or system. So, a hair brush has a handle, and that handle is the point at which the object (the hair brush) affords any use by the user, because the person can grab the handle and orient the bristles when the dragging the brush through their hair. Hence the book's cover design, depicting the coffee pot with the misplaced handle, demonstrating a misplaced affordance, which results in the user getting burned when they try to pour hot coffee. The mouse is an affordance on a computer, because it's the device used for pointing. The keyboard is the affordance for typing. The video monitor is the affordance for observing output. The "submit" button on a web form in an HTML page is the affordance for sending data to the web server.
When would you ever use the words "honest", "humane" or "civil" in place of "affordance"? Those are adjectives, but the word "affordance" is a noun.
Yeah, I wouldn't use those words in place of "affordance". My point is that those are also words in the designer vocabulary, but ones that are on the fluffy side of design rather than the hard human-factors side, like "affordance". Which we don't have enough of. But I'm a fluffy designer, so who am I to complain?
as an english english speaker, it's associated with regret, sadness, etc. yet i've seen it used here multiple times to mean something completely different. what?
a subject of poignant interest.
i suspect it's a cultural variation.