Google Designers talk about material design

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Flat design is an excessively abusive word. However, its popularity reflects a trend in the design field, and people are quickly abandoning the quasi-materialized design. There is a point of view that people need to be familiar with the touch interface at the early stage of development, which can be achieved by imitating the real interface. When people are used to touch interfaces, they do not need the metaphor of the real world. Therefore, in software design, we should pursue a more electronic interface and be no longer limited by the rules of the physical world.

In this case, Google's material design seems to be against the trend. It uses the paper and ink of the real world as a metaphor. It emphasizes shadows and layers, uses animation effects to represent the actual force feedback, and tries to bring back the rules of the physical world to the electronic interface. What is the significance of the idea of material design? To address these issues, theverge interviewed several Google designers.

Material design is inspired by a design exploration. When Google search's main designer Jon Wiley and colleague Nicholas jitkoff looked at the ubiquitous cards in Google products, they thought of the question: if you drag a card, what are the following? Starting from this idea, the design team considered the components of the software. They began to think of cards and backgrounds as real and accessible items.

If these cards are real items, there should be rules to limit their performance on the screen. As a result, the team created a metaphor material similar to magic paper. It is flat, floating on the background, and shadow. When you move them, they will be crossed out rather than gone out of thin air. They cannot be moved by themselves.

In addition, they decided to use bold, bright colors and big fonts. This is the origin of material design. However, Wiley and jitoff said that this new beauty is also the evolution of Google's design philosophy. Previously, Google had a "Kennedy project" designed in a unified manner at the company, and material design was a further development. "In general, the platform gives people a colorful feeling," jitoff said. "It is colorful, just as the logo is colorful, it is simple, just as the homepage is simple ."

Material Design unifies the company's ideas, in the eyes of Matias Duarte, vice president of design, but it is also a limitation. Restrictions make design decisions easier and more consistent. For example, under material design, cards cannot be turned over. This is like saying that software is a real item, and there is no room for turning cards in the mobile phone. "Design is to find a solution within the limit," Duarte said. "If there is no limit, it is not design-it is art ."

Google designers refuse to name such virtual materials. Although it follows some physical rules, it does not completely imitate the real paper. It can display the animation effect and help users understand their position in the application. "A lot of software gives people the feeling of Jump cutting in movies or TVs," Wiley said. This will lead to a loss of time and space.

In applications, you need something close to a stage. He said, "This is a scenario change. What happens on the stage is organized, transitioned, and meaningful ."

Material Design's ambition is not only to unify Google's products, but also to give Android a new look. At a deeper level, it is a way of thinking about human-computer interaction. Xeroxparc provides us with a model that allows us to understand how computers work. Apple has taken us from the mouse and mouse age to the touch age. Google believes that its software design model allows us to move forward again. Through material design, we can form a cognitive model to quickly adapt to the increasing number of new devices.