Quasi-real design and flat design

At the 2013 WWDC Global Developers ' conference, the long-awaited Apple iOS7 system unlocked the veil, just as everyone had speculated before the departure of Scott Forstall, Apple's iOS executive, The skeuomorphism, which has dominated the design of Apple for nearly 30 years, has finally said goodbye to the user's eyes, replacing it with the style of the interface that is closer to flat design (flat). Although the vast number of users spit iOS7 is a mixed mix, but abandoned the idea of the design is very obvious, then let us look at the difference between the two design ideas.

According to Wikipedia's definition of skeuomorphism, this complex word refers to the use of existing entities, even if the new design does not require the original function, but makes the new design to meet a certain degree of affinity needs. Not only is the wooden bookshelf in the ibooks, but even the sound of the shutter of the camera software to simulate mechanical cameras falls into this category.

And the real design is really starting to be the focus of attention is due to the iphone, a few years ago the iphone interface in the high texture of the material button touched the people, from the real design of the trend began to prevail.

In fact, the idea of the real design in the 1984 Mac computer has a prototype: calculator, disk, Garbage bin several main features have been not rich in the picture painted out. The graphic interface system was a novelty, and in order for the user to understand and become familiar with the software, Apple's designers thought about it and kept it up to now.

The graphical interface of early Apple systems

So where is the real design, can once let Apple design follow this idea to go for such a long time, and the previous iOS almost all applications have different degrees of use of the design, whether it is the button or page, or even the shutter sound and the action of the dice.

In fact, if you extract some key elements from the design, then the most important possibility is that the design is more like an emotional person, will let the user feel cordial, ibooks dazzling shelves and exquisite page effect let users forget that they are on a screen pointing point, whether visual or operational , like a real book. This makes the user comfortable intimacy greatly reduces the user to the unfamiliar software the study cost, because everything and the reality is so close.

ibooks Graphical interface

But it is precisely because of this, the popularity of the design is also molded in addition to the user a bad habit, that is, "Judge the book". Believe that the vast majority of users browsing the App store are looking at which icons are beautiful and exquisite, beautiful icons and buttons will always attract people to point out, even if the actual application of the function is not good, and even some applications are only the background of the simulation processing, The same long-winded and cumbersome approach is used.

It is also at the beginning of people's obsession with the design of the heat began to decline, a new graphical interface design is now in front of people, this is the Microsoft's Metro UI as the representative of the flat design.

Windows RT Graphical Interface

Similar to the real design, in fact, flat design has already appeared in everyone's side, the earliest can be traced back to the Swiss design, although the Swiss design has always been the emphasis on the layout of the neat and the image of the simplification, but only relying on print dissemination of the era, is unable to achieve Microsoft's influence

Swiss layout design

Flat design pursuit of pure visual experience, through simple shapes and colors to replace the texture and light effect, which also makes the love of the design concept of the designers in the hearts of a lot of resonance, Antoine de Saint-Exupery pointed out: to achieve a perfect state, not to be able to complete everything , but in each of the limited components, are irreplaceable essence.

And this kind of design idea is actually based on the user cognition a kind of sublimation. Interesting to say, Microsoft's graphical interface was "borrowed" from the Apple graphics interface before the advent and flourish, then the flat design shows the simplicity is actually a high degree of integration of information, in the user's understanding of the difficulty is actually higher, to know that there are many users have not seen the Xbox handle, Don't even know what the Xbox is.

However, the rise of flat design does affect a lot of designers, and gradually let the designers realize that the PS in the rendering of a variety of texture and light sense although the ego feels good, but not perfect in every place. and App Store application, also began to appear in the simple shape as the theme of the icon.

In contrast, flat design is not a perfect design idea, because of the extreme simplification in visual effects, many design details are discarded so that all visual elements are displayed on the same plane, and users are likely to be confused about the difference between a button and a banner ad, not to mention the corresponding effect after a desired click.

Overall, whether it's a real or flat design, is the design of ideas to advance the optional road, not to mention the progress of design ideas have always been closely linked with the development of technology, whether the emergence of Retina screen or response-style Web site, will affect the application of design ideas, The choice of appropriate design ideas to performance can make the design ideas to play the most perfect effect.