What Happened To User Interfaces?

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In this video, we explore the evolution of user interfaces and dive into why they have become so boring over the years. Starting from the vibrant and quirky UIs of the early 2000s, how usability and design patterns have streamlined interfaces, making them more uniform but also dull. We discuss the impact of Sci-Fi on UI design, how science fiction inspires real-world technology, and highlight examples of modern UIs that are bringing back creativity and individuality. Finally, we look at the current trends and how some companies are reintroducing cool, engaging, and beautifully crafted interfaces.
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🖖 Hey! I'm Enrico and on this channel I go behind the scenes of the design, psychology and stories behind tech and making stuff on the internet. I'm a tech Product Manager, builder of things made of pixels.
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The visuals or audio herein may not be utilised to train a machine learning algorithm of any kind without express permission of the Copyright holder (Enrico Tartarotti)
p.s. If you made it all the way here, you are in the cool people gang 🖖🏻 let me know by typing "I'm cool" in the comments
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[@enricotartarotti]

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[@secretbassrigs]

Google needs to be broken up by Congress. It's horrible how evil they actually are. I'm old enough to remember "Don't be Evil". The hypocrisy should be palpable by now. I'm so tired of having to check if I'm being censored. That should be evidence enough of some sinister behavior.

[@yomanyo327]

Hey, do you remember what was the name of that screen saver/animated background for android at 2:57?

[@UcheOgbiti]

UI for games are also a solid example of artistic interfaces

[@Kynatosh]

Yeah some games look awesome but some of them have TERRIBLE menu navigation bevause of that

[@HagobSaldadianSmeik]

Highfleet is my favourite example. It has an amazing skeumorphic UI.

[@matthewboyd8689]

Yeah Call of Duty having one pixel thick line for your armor If we're supposed to be sitting more than 6 ft away from the TV then these lines need to be thicker. I should really make it so that you could read it if it was on a 144 display so you don't have to stop to understand what the F is going on without being distracted and die.

[@EuphoricPentagram]

Huuu I hadent thought about that but yeah!! Now I wonder what a Minecraft style ui website would look like

[@Brahvim]

@@Kynatosh Should be more dynamic, right? Imagine one of those Windows XP bugs which summon too many error dialogs, but as the number of error dialog boxes increases, the sound effect used changes. As I said, _dynamic._ Perhaps they stop using dialog boxes and simply bring up a terminal window. You could be fitting a mascot character into all of this! This change might stress out a user less and still let them believe that the computer _is_ having "severe problems", but in a more _"believable"_ manner, and let then know that the issues won't affect anything outside the computer, though they will require restarting the computer. Imagine restarting your computer and having the mascot tell you that stuff went wrong, but that it's been alright since the restart. You wouldn't even have to view logs this way! Win-win for being both a cool and functional UI that _expresses_ things very well!

[@BigyetiTechnologies]

The problem with flashy animations is they take time to complete, and people are impatient. An animation in a UI needs to be completed in a fraction of a second. They're there to show an action is completed.

[@LiveType]

Correct. It's why high refresh rate matters. Can shorten delays while still showing animations.

[@floofball8905]

@@LiveType that's not how refresh rates on screens work, nor does CPU speed matter for how fast an animation is done (doesn't matter compared to old computers like in the IBM turbo button and before where everything was mostly timed based off the clock speed)

[@Spikehead777]

I do like really fast animations (finishing in less than a second) to show that I'm navigating inside and interacting with the UI, but also, I like when I can still control the UI even if an animation is playing (it's non-blocking).

[@GIRGHGH]

Animations typically can be interrupted, you don't have to wait

[@jankoodziej877]

​@@GIRGHGH typically it's exactly the other way around. And sometimes if they can be interrupted, it breaks something (a famous example is clock design in Android for setting timers, if you are faster than animation it sets to different values than what you selected).

[@abhisheknavgan6829]

bro literally used Indian government website as an example of bad web design 😂. Yeah, I am from India and every fking Indian will agree with this fact. mostly it is a miracle if those websites even work. We just can't expect them to look good and work at the same time, no that is not possible here in India at least not with government sites 😂😂

[@enricotartarotti]

I still have nightmares from that

[@YashChandraPandey]

@@enricotartarotti Just think of applying for jobs through those website

[@AbdulRawoofKhan]

@@enricotartarotti That's the best website we have cuz its for foreign people, I wish you had tried the website we use to file Income tax returns xD By the way, are you hosting a meetup? I'd love to meet you in person when you come to India. I'm from Bangalore (Bengaluru)

[@assasink1686]

India is not for beginners🔥

[@romancernjak]

German and Croatian websites are right up there.

[@mjiii]

I think user interfaces peaked right before the "aquarium" era. They were consistent and had clear design patterns, and virtually no unnecessary distractions. You could immediately tell that something is a button. Title bars were an effective way to explore and discover features of software. Window decorations and scrollbars were consistent across all applications. Buttons and switches were labeled with text you could read(!!) to understand what they do instead of some undecipherable icon you've never seen before (and will never see again). The recent movement towards simpler, more consistent designs is definitely a step in the right direction but it is hard to do right (without throwing out important visual cues in the name of minimalism). It's all too common to see designers going for what looks good at first glance in a presentation instead of thinking in detail about how users are going to interact with the design.

[@talentlikedisturbia]

This comment is so underrated. Thanks man. As a Product Designer, that's exactly what I was thinking.

[@MichaelKathke]

YES, I thought that too. I think it's just cheaper to use automatically generated UI design patterns from libraries like SwiftUI, UIKit, etc. rather than thinking deeply about the different requirements of a music player, a shopping app, a photo database, etc. and implementing them yourself. Maybe games are the last playing field for innovative UI designs?

[@AlamdaAli]

the thing is that everything is a button now a days

[@Sleezy.Design]

That "Delete Card" animation on the old wallet app was pretty sick! Completely forgot about that.

[@JannesDragon]

It's great, I wish we still had some apps that do such things these days

[@gabrielgian6207]

Imagine having to sit through that crap every time you had to delete a burner virtual card today

[@deivclayton]

I miss the depth in computer OS design not because I want it to look like stuff in the real world, but our eyes are suited for 3d vision. The flat design aesthetic that has taken over the last 10-15 years is painful to the eyes exactly because it IS SO FLAT. It denies our natural vision in favor lazy design at the expense of our ability to see more clearly. Mac OS has become so devoid of life. I want the brushed aluminum look back. I want texture, shadows, etc.

[@Roxor128]

Yeah, it's like UI designers were so desperate to get away from Windows 7, that they went all the way back to Windows 1.0. One thing Microsoft was really good at in the 1990s versions of Windows was making thinks look like they could be clicked on. They got fancy with XP through 7, but did a full reset with 8 and the flat crap.

[@blakearius]

I went into Design because of those old interfaces. Customizing windows XP to look like stuff out of a movie, I wanted to design animated flash websites..Some of the niche web design of that time are like a video game to navigate. But by the time I got out of uni, flash was dying and the minimalist trend became the norm. Screwed my whole life trajectory since I was somewhat aimless after that. Never wanted to get into modern UI/UX design that is so prevalent now.

[@bltzcstrnx]

Flash websites are awful, they have a "flashy" UI but terrible UX. Not to mention they're security nightmares.

[@blakearius]

@@bltzcstrnx The user experience was great on many of these sites, and while flash caused many security issues that didn't apply to these design studio made sites. The problem was they were only really useful for say showing off 1 particular project or product. A pain to update or make changes and pretty bad if you had to send through any information in a form. HTML did sorta catch up, But its always been more restrictive and no one does these promotional microsites anymore as social media sites just perform better.

[@blakearius]

@@Axel_Andersen Don't think for a second you represent most people. The bland boring minimalist aesthetic apple popularised is a boring plague that counter culture will eventually turn back on as is currently happening. You're a product of post modernism, functionality at the cost of beauty, art and exploration and that mentality can piss off like the cardboard tasting slop it is. If you applied your dogshit mentality to everything you'd be fed intravenously because taste is irrelevant to productivity. Beautiful things make people happy and relieve stress and we wonder why everyone is so damn stressed and unhappy these days surrounded by mass market templated designs that all looks the same... stress is bad for productivity... But at least your grandmother wont trip up on some fancy steps or click the wrong link.

[@chualarbill]

I turned 40 this year. Seeing Winamp skins just made me feel so OLD. LOL

[@MyrddinREmrys]

I'm using the winamp from 2023 with my music library and great modern skins 🎉 in 2024 and planning to keep it.! ❤

[@chualarbill]

@@MyrddinREmrys Does it still whip the Llama’s a$$?

[@karellen00]

It wasn't even Winamp, but Sonique, at least the one with the green head!

[@TimVerweij]

Didn't Winamp also run on Windows 95? I definitely remember using it on Win98.

[@rano12321]

Well you can still get winamp level customisation feel with reaper because it's made by the same guy😂.

[@roelsch]

It is not just the art getting lost, these minimalist designs are also much harder to use. A few years ago everyone started wondering why buttons look different from UI labels, and you know what, it looks much more *slick* without those clunky signifiers. That really sucks as a user. It is painful to watch someone trying to use an app or website like that, and a few years ago that was basically every website, and every Android app. It was terrible. If a building were designed like that a door would look exactly like the rest of the wall because can't have a ClUnkY recTAngle, and anyone wanting to enter would have to go push on every inch of the wall to see where that door is. I like that parallel with architecture, I think in both architecture and software design there's some disdain for users involved.

[@alainzscheile6913]

well, I've seen quite a few buildings already where doors are only discernable from walls because they some kind of minimal handle somewhere. (gaps in the walls don't help finding those, because they get regularly inserted even if there is no door)

[@PetulaGuimaraes]

This. I hate having to spend time trying to figure out these gestures of every new gadget who decides they're too cool to have a few clear buttons

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

Rectangles are the future, mon.

[@Daniel_Zhu_a6f]

simple UI is good. nothing is simpler than a box with a text label. animation exists for feedback only. btw, this is not a "modern" interface, eg vim had no buttons 30y ago, only a status bar and several text input boxes. and people love vim so much

[@Cyfrik]

Been trying to teach my mom how to play OpenTTD. She kept clicking on the labels, because she assumed they were a different set of buttons.

[@jangelbrich7056]

And the worst of all anti-patterns: pop-ups and stealing focus

[@chrisstahl2653]

Actually a lot of modern interface design doesn't have good usability at all. Usability has nothing to do with minimalism. The current apple website for example is a usability nightmare. Usability is about how things function, where they are positioned, those things. Usability is mostly about being relatable, being discoverable. For example one important rule is that an online button should be recognizable as such, which can be done in very different styles. Another example is the ubiquitous plus-button every other App has., except it does something totally different every time., that is horrible and not usable at all. Designers who claim that their boringg style is like that because it has a high usability are just making excuses for their lack of creativity.

[@litjellyfish]

We need to separate usability and recollection and visual load. Yes they work together of course but serve different purpose. And as you say should not canibalize on each other. The balance is also different depending on app and use case.

[@td19xyz]

I disagree on the spaceship controls -- the touchscreen likely isn't substantially easier to use than the space shuttle's. SpaceX likely used the touchscreens because it's cheaper to implement and iterate on - same reason why new cars use touchscreens despite the increased safety hazzards associated with using them.

[@Axel_Andersen]

Yes! You do not see many touch sreen in military vehicles. Iterate ... that really is the mentality of the valley, fail fast, don't get it right the first time. Works for somethings, but not space exploration, aviation, cars...

[@Axel_Andersen]

The space shuttle is perfect example of good user interface. Everything has a place and will stay in its place and will not willy nilly move around the UI with every new version. I can see all the functionality there is and I will develop a muscle memory to find things. .And everything is documented in manual where actual answers are answered and not some useless help/search funtionality.

[@SimonBuchanNz]

Like many craft, the space shuttle had many refits over it's service life, including changes to the control panels. Also like most air and space craft, the panels were built around "MFDs", or Multi Function Displays. These are programmable LCD screens that can be configured for whatever purposes the pilot finds most useful at the time. But yes, everything was extensively documented. Good interfaces still require this!

[@Axel_Andersen]

@@SimonBuchanNz I know. But they were not TOUCH screens. And they were carefully crafted and tested. Unlike most UI we see on consumer gear, cars or on the web.

[@Mark-wz9uh]

@@Axel_Andersen Yes, there is a tradeoff of being simple vs being able to master an interface. Most apps today optimize for being simple for first time users. The cost is, that an experienced user at some point cant become more proficient.

[@darealdeal8185]

@@SimonBuchanNz MFD style screens with programmable buttons is what the auto industry should've adopted instead of going all out on touchscreens for their infotainment I like having a nice screen to display infotainment, but also want tactile buttons to control music and navigation. An MFD would combine both of these things

[@yinako]

Senior ux/ ui designer here. Just like anything that has transitions to mainstream e.g buildings and cars. The boring designs represents the defacto design for the masses, as it is trying to create experience that tries to cover all people. Thats why government services and banking is as boring as it gets but great accessibility. Howevever check out luxury retailers sites, gaming sites. Its focused at specific users that will appreciate fun and luxury athesticis. There many boring cars, then theres Lamborghinis, and lambos are not made for the masses. I'm sure many designers are also bored of the simplicity trend, but there needs to be a cultural shift for that to happen, e.g as you have shown in the 60s everthing looks retro futuristic, because the introduction of nuclear energy breakthrough.

[@enricotartarotti]

Thanks for the perspective!

[@erickroeger1161]

the Space-x touchscreen... sounds like what a manager would advocate for and not the actual pilot

[@theceohq]

2 important reasons this video _implicitly_ stated, but didn't sufficiently specify: 1) accessibility and 2) cost of implementation/maintenance. 1) A lot of "fancy", "hip", "fun" designs simply aren't accessible. People with visual and/or motor impairments may be a minority, but still accounts for millions of users. Most if not all screenshots of "fun" interfaces from the early Internet wouldn't come close to meeting WAI-ARIA standards. Additionally, building "fun" interfaces that work well/predictably with assistance tools like screen readers is either highly inefficient, or flat-out impossible. 2) Even if we ignored accessibility, the fact is: websites and products we use nowadays are designed and developed by hundreds of designers and engineers. _Any_ large organisation strives to have a cohesive, manageable codebase. The more "non-essential" complexity you add to it, the more difficult that task becomes. That is why a lot of the most "innovative" new designs don't come from large organisations, but small teams or even solo developers. For the record: Even with all of this, I am not saying there isn't room for improvement, while still honouring accessibility & scalability. But it's just very, very hard. That's why we don't see it done often-yet.

[@Mark-wz9uh]

1) Not saying accessibility isn't something to consider, but we are optimizing a 5% case instead of the 95% majority? And we are eliminating possibilities of making something cool, but don't because of the 5%? 2) That sounds more like company culture: Do we want to make something that barely works, and just fullfills the requirements or something we can be proud to have shipped.

[@theceohq]

@@Mark-wz9uh 1) There is no definitive answer and different people have different opinions. Personally, enabling 5% of global internet users to participate is an absolutely valid trade-off; at least if we’re talking about platforms that are essentially considered a utility, like social media, streaming platforms etc. Where the target audience is NOT global I would agree it may not be of massive concern. Also: I never said accessibility is the only consideration. As I wrote in my last paragraph: I believe there is a lot of room for improvement even WITH accessibility in mind. It’s not “either-or”. 2) I don’t know if you have ever worked in a large software organisation. Personally speaking from experience: getting software built (at all) consistently is already incredibly difficult. There is an inverse relationship between “fun & exciting” and “code maintainability”. With limited time & resources the short-term economic decision for a lot of companies is to prioritize “maintainability”. Of course, this comes with long-term impacts on user happiness; but that’s a lagging metric with nebulous impact on long-term revenue. Thus many, if not most companies are willing to ignore it for short-term growth and profits. I said it before and I said it again: I am not in favor of these incentive structures. I am just saying they exist; and boring design is rarely a lack of will by engineers and designers, but by necessity imposed by large organisational structures.

[@cjshields2007]

This.

[@F3XT]

@@Mark-wz9uh yes it is allowing the 5% to actually live a normal life, I don't know what's so hard to understand about that, acessibility no matter the field implies doing that and this doesn't mean you are hindering the life of people by doing this, it's quite literally the opposite

[@F3XT]

also if you wanna act like it's a conspiracy you can't even blame acessibility because acessibility is still mostly an afterthought, other factors at play are way more important and I imagine the original commenter also means acessibility in the sense of understanding, looking at an UI and having proper understanding of it

[@brianclifton9399]

Software engineer (Programmer, Software Developer, Software Engineer and a transitional label or two between) for 29 years, I certainly remember what you are referring to. A popular term at one time for this was "Mystery Meat" navigation, and it was absurd and obnoxious (MySpace). This was before such a thing as UI/UX, and Google's material design won, for good reason, their minimalist design and standardization across apps made it easy for non-technical users to use most websites (later web apps). Ultimately the web is about converting users to customers, and different/creative/non-standard UIs hurt those conversion numbers. Which is a bad UX for the customer and obviously bad for business. So for web apps that actually matter, that isn't going to change. Thank god.

[@GlennSisson]

I would be happy to see "artistic" UIs return, as long as usability isn't compromised. The problem with the "flat" takeover, is that a "simple" UI does not equate to "simple to use". The flat takeover often left me downright angry, as distinct and intuitive real-world UI elements were squished flat, indistinguishable, and impossible to use. Thanks for the video and I love your accent.

[@wintermute5974]

It's interesting how whenever this topic comes up you'll have a lot of people saying that a big driver of modern UI design is accessability, but also a large number of people complaining about how difficult and inaccessible they find many aspects of modern UI design. It sounds like modern accessability practices have some unexamined blind spots.

[@rebeccaschade3987]

"People caught up with technology." Ehh, did they? Or was technology simply made simple enough for people who don't understand it to actually use it? When I speak with people who aren't traditionally "tech people," I find it really easy to notice that they don't "understand" things, they just know how to "do" things. These design rules you speak of, make things uniform enough that people don't need to UNDERSTAND technology in order to use it. People don't need to learn how to use a computer, they simply need to learn a minimal amount of symbols in order to complete certain tasks. This is also why we're seeing a change in generational computer literacy. It used to be the case that parents would ask their children for help with their computers, and now, children actually ask their parents for help whenever something goes wrong, because young people, who have grown up with this modern design philosophy, actually don't learn much beyond "click button X to make thing Y happen." There are obviously exceptions, but this does seem to be the general rule. So perhaps one might argue that modern design philosophy is TOO "good" or at least too simple. Perhaps it's a good thing, to not make things too easy? Perhaps we SHOULD cultivate a society where complex tasks actually require a certain level of understanding?

[@clairesimpson7329]

I'm a late GenXer. Our generation (and older Millenials) grew up with technology as it progressed. We went from the command line interface to clunky UIs that were so slow they weren't very functional. Windows 3.1 was a little better, but Windows 95 was a revelation. It opened up accessibility to people who didn't need to understand how computers work but needed to write a document or create a spreadsheet. But as time has progressed and accessibility for ordinary people has improved (even if it is a bit boring but it improves access for disabled people) what has really fallen down is education. Younger generations should have learned a limited array of functions so that they can navigate the increasingly technological world but they have not. I'm a college professor. The level of technological illiteracy in younger generations astonishes me. I'll give you an example - one class (population genetics if you care) I was teaching *PhD students* and there were some statistical calculations that needed to made. Nothing complicated, just the chi-square test. In order to ensure they understood what was going on under the hood, so to speak, I made them do all the steps of the calculations from scratch in Excel. I made a lovely, easy-to-use spreadsheet with the data, and all they had to do was input a couple of formulae to do some basic calculations (but not using Excel's native chi-square function). It was essential for these students to understand (hilariously, some students go into biology because they think there's less math.) One student wasn't getting the right answer, so I went over to help (small class, only 5 students, so it's easy to give personalized help). I navigated to one of the cells where she needed to input a simple formula to calculate allele frequencies. It didn't have a formula, just a number. I asked how she had done it. She had used the calculator app on her iPhone. I was honestly staggered. Why are we churning out people who don't have a basic grasp of common workplace applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Adobe Acrobat? Going back to my original point, we have come to a place where some highly simplified UIs are killing the ability to learn more complex programs. Unless you have an interest, you don't need to learn how to navigate a CLI or write code in a common programming language (although it might be good if they did). But you do have to navigate the business world, even if you flip burgers or clean offices for a living, especially if you want to advance into a career. I'm a CLI girl which is why I love Linux. I still use vi to write code because I'm super old-school and don't need the bells and whistles of an integrated development environment (IDE). I like using LaTeX for writing. I'm forced to use Windows and Office because writing manuscripts or creating a presentation is easy when you have non-tech colleagues who may need to make comments and suggestions. I don't expect younger generations to be like me, but we have got to stop oversimplification that is leading to technological illiteracy.

[@albericponcedeleon2696]

​@@clairesimpson7329 Rest In Pepperoni for those students that got into biology to avoid math and ended up on a PopGen course. 😂 On a more serious note, I do feel that my ability with software has gone down as UI has simplified. I don't need to think as much about what I'm doing anymore. Which has lead to the feeling that all of my workflows are sub-optimal. "Surely there must be a better way to do X task" has been an increasingly common thought.

[@luke_fabis]

Even in the 90s, there were still companies trying to make their UIs playful and friendly. Apple, Be, Palm, and a lot of Nintendo games from the SNES era went for that kind of look. The stark blandness of Windows up to Windows 2000 was on purpose - it was supposed to look businesslike, since corporations were Microsoft's biggest customer. As home computers became much more mainstream, Microsoft did kind of expand their color palette and soften up their design with Whistler. And then Apple came out with Aqua, so Microsoft panicked, went apeshit and made Windows XP look like a Fischer Price toy at the last minute, eventually pivoting toward a more glassy Apple-like look with Media Center Edition. I honestly miss the cartoony pixel art look of the mid to late 90s, though. Most people never really got to experience it, even if they had a home computer. But it was just so charming.

[@Roxor128]

The blandness of Windows up to 2000 was the good kind of bland: it kept out of your way but made it easy to tell what could be clicked on and what things did. A little reading comprehension got you 70% of the way there, experimentation took care of another 20%, and reading the manual (or help files) did the final 10%. The blandness we have now doesn't make it clear what's clickable, avoids text like the plague so there's no way to use reading comprehension to try and figure things out, and rarely even includes help files at all, meaning figuring out a new program is almost entirely trial-and-error.

[@tutacat]

The SpaceX one looks like a guy decided that it would be way cheaper to use a touchscreen, even though it is less reliable

[@AlamdaAli]

yep. less reliable because of everything, radiation, durability, repair, everything..

[@Octamed]

It's just designers copying each other out of paranoid fears of being 'uncool'. Showing my dad what icons do on his iphone, made me really realise how stupid icons have become. They're not only just a few squiggles, but they literally don't look like the original skeuomorphism design they were based off. We're not ancient Egyptians, I'd rather just have... like... WORDS

[@victortitov1740]

that's what microsoft did with windows phone

[@sweetcorm]

It’s ironic how you brought up ancient Egyptians, whose hieroglyphs, that originally represented the thing that they looked like, have devolved into the very letters, you used to write this, becoming completely unrecognisable and devoid of their original meaning :D

[@mayatrash]

Skeumorphism can be interesting but looks really bad most of the time

[@brianclifton9399]

It's really not, it is because it is best practice.

[@Axel_Andersen]

@@mayatrash Functionality should come over looks everytime. This is where skeumorphism is a win many times.

[@erkintek]

Companies aim for all people, and assume many people are idiots.

[@GuillermoPaulman]

To be fair, that's a correct assumption.

[@melo_maniac_studio]

Enrico roasting a modern house is gold 😭🙏

[@Papasot]

Butter 🧈

[@Xaphino]

Imagine someone walking out and listening to him calling his house ugly 👁️👄👁️

[@robertosswald5896]

Usability and simplicity do not equal "mysterious meat ui". I still want labels visible without interacting with the element, and I want labels, buttons, links, and plain text easily discernable from each other. And don't even make me start on stupid toggles I always need to double tap just to figure out their state (and sometimes even that doesn't help). Ui is a victim of laziness and incompetence. And those same lazy, incompetent people had the position to make their dumb decisions a standard.

[@user-uz6dg7zw8n]

An important thing is that ui's for productivity / work - we need it to be plain, simple. The cognitive load of doing things differently when we are under pressure from a time and mental perspective is perhaps too much. We can't manage if things are too different. (Though, Microsoft make the dreadful UI's - think about Office for a second and if you're really unlucky, Sharepoint ).

[@litjellyfish]

Yes. Same as books and magazine. Sure playful comics. Children books and some fancy art / fashion magazines is cool. But there is reasons we many books is basked in shared design guidelines. They work and as you say reduce the cognitive load. It is meant to be neutral as the content itself is the key thing to focus on. Not the ui. It should ideally be easy to understand but apart from that fade away into nothingness

[@ThePC007]

I actually strongly disagree that minimalist design makes things simpler and easier to use. I frequently misread flat designs in ways that would never happen in a skeuomorphic interface. The biggest offender may be those tabs that indicate that they are active by simply drawing a colored line underneath them. I frequently mistook a different tab as being the active one while coding (in code editors the tabs may be colored differently to indicate different things) and one time I mistook the colored line for a scrollbar. And then there are text input fields that lack an outline and therefore look like labels or titles. I’ve been bitten by those as well.

[@Axel_Andersen]

Hear hear! Agree with most of that. Having said that I think one of the things is that designer forget the old adage "Make it as simple as possible, BUT NOT simpler".

[@Voreoptera]

In some user interfaces for websites I can not tell the difference between a disabled button and a button, because the design between websites are inconsistent.

[@Axel_Andersen]

@@Voreoptera Hear hear!

[@ThePC007]

​@@Voreoptera Oh yeah, consistency in design is dying as well. Remember when checkboxes were square and radio buttons were round? Nowadays, designers just flip a coin to decide the shape of their UI elements. And yeah, the “gray button that may or may not be disabled” and the “piece of text that may or may not be outlined with a thin line and may or may not be a button” don’t help, either.

[@MsharyPersonal]

0:05 only psychopaths do this

[@unprofound]

I just don't think that intuitive and beautiful are antithetical to each other. This is capitalism driving efficiency. Which is shame.

[@brookechang4942]

Exactly. Putting extra aesthetic touches into designs costs money, which eats into profit margins.

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

Why? Just why? For everything that happens you blame capitalism. Up there with a stuck air in your lungs.

[@Lestibournes]

Capitalism just means freedom. You get to keep your stuff and not get robbed, murdered, or enslaved. If you mean the profit motive, it would motivate you to not just reduce costs, but make stuff that people will want to buy.

[@bradbradson4543]

Lmao, capitalism is based on stealing. What are you talking about @Lestibournes

[@Lestibournes]

@@bradbradson4543 Lol. That's just commie propaganda to convince you to become a serf in return for "free stuff"

[@JannesDragon]

bring back skeuomorphism

[@GuillermoPaulman]

I themed my macOS so that it looks like the version 10.6 (Snow Leopard). Those old icons are beautiful.

[@engparinya]

There will always a pendulum that swings to left and to the right. Where things are the most interesting is when the pendulum is in the middle. Designers can finally made the push to the next frontier.

[@stepanavdeeff]

I think detailed style will come back one day. But I doubt it'll be popular in apps like tiktok. This style is more suitable for games

[@legendinfamous2100]

I find the most refreshing perspectives here in every upload :) , Thanks Enrico 🙌

[@rebeccaschade3987]

No, no, no. Vista was "not too slow" when it came out. It was simply that for some really, REALLY strange reason, a small subset of very loud and non-computer savvy users have always had this idea that "a new OS must be faster (on my old hardware) than the old one." This has NEVER been the case. A new OS has pretty much always been slower than the old one, because it's designed for use with the newest and future hardware. If you had a sufficiently powerful computer, Vista was fast and slick. I bought a Dell XPS M1730 back in the day, and it came with Vista, and it absolutely flew. All the special graphical effects it used? Hardware accelerated... As long as your graphics card wasn't too old. Which for a lot of people, it was. Especially for non-gamers. For anyone with current hardware, it was totally fine. Did Vista have other issues? Sure. But "being really slow" wasn't a fault of the OS, it was the fault of all those people with old computers, expecting a new, forward looking OS, to be faster than their old one.

[@Jmatad21]

I was flash UI designer. Now, I'm nothing.

[@Blockchain_Simon]

Thks a lot for that video. Was a pleasure watching and highly relevant for my job as a PM Software. Going to redesign our software and your perspective gave me some good inspirations for the tasks ahead.

[@srikarkandikonda605]

++ hope your app turns out to be fire.

[@brianclifton9399]

If you like your job, I'd suggest you don't. Look up data-driven development before taking the advice of unemployed KZbinrs.

[@MaxMiller94]

Skeuomorphism is one thing, but dark patterns and attempting to account for even the most technophobic user are what really drove us away from good design.

[@RenoReborn]

There's a great line from a Green Lantern movie (not that one), something to the effect of "The mark of an advanced civilization is how intuitive their tech is to use"

[@CBM64]

I don't miss the clunky user interfaces from the past. But some were very good such as PS3's Xross Media Bar.

[@austinedeclan10]

It's the one size fits all mentality and following trends. Some sites need to usable, highly responsive and very perfomant. Others do not. Other can get away with being slow but colorful and quirky. App designers need to not only know their audience but the context in which their audience use their product. For example, I use my phone for communication and entertainment but when I need to do serious work, I reach for my PC. Is the user trying to entertain himself or is he trying to complete a task? Is the user looking for an experience or for efficiency?

[@Lilleh__]

It would be lovely to see UIs become nice to look at again, rather than everything being bland, featureless, dead and soulless. I imagine it'll happen one day, but when idk.

[@grooty709]

Nice video, probably one of your best imo as for me personally, i use an android and like apps designed with Material You (changing colour based on wallpaper) and also same looking interface. I like it for the consistency and I really love the colour switching based on wallpaper. It's not necessarily that i like that the apps are somewhat minimal, its just that they are consistent and not too much in your face (idk how to describe it). Like the Apple IOS torch brightness thing you showed, i liked the old one because it was simpler. For your Italian architecture point, as a non-italian, isnt it also just that Italian buildings are more locally focused (creating things in pieces/stages and so there's a lot more detail in each of the pieces)

[@pratyushkongalla8928]

Having to come across so many "old design" interfaces which also don't work properly, the minimalist design feels like a relief

[@leojclarke]

Same. Life is overloaded enough… simplicity is peace not boredom to me 😅

[@David_337]

Good video although there are two points that I have to criticize: 1. He argues that colorful and cool Frutiger Aero interfaces like Windows XP and Vista were the trend back then to make computers seem more approachable and usable, but then a few minuets later he makes the argument that everything today is dull and boring also to improve usability...? - self contradiction here that doesn't at all answer why the styling is gone 2. It's not very fair to compare the Space Shuttle and SpaceX Crew Dragon interfaces as the Space Shuttle is indeed a far more complex spacecraft that had a large cargo bay that could carry satellites, a robotic arm, airlocks for EVA, and was also a fully-fledged glider spaceplane with wings, ailerons, etc, while the SpaceX capsule is a mostly automated crew pod that has none of the above. Their interfaces reflect the huge difference in complexity and capability between the two, and not necessarily a fashion/UX trend.

[@cscnmhmt]

The Patek Philippe example at the end was a chefs kiss. Great video man

[@vladbalan5513]

Such a great video. Loved the architecture comparison!

[@ux_arjun]

I guess it becomes a question of function vs form. Do users prefer aesthetics or would they rather get their task completed as quick as possible? I personally enjoy micro interactions and the fun animations in UI as a user, so I’m curious what others feel.

[@litjellyfish]

Like everything it’s a balance. Also let’s not forgot that many micro interactions are not just there to be fun and nice looking they also serve cognitive functions

[@Cyfrik]

Honestly, most of these "simplified" UIs also have less function than older interfaces, by removing features to get a "cleaner" look.

[@ToddMagnussonWasHere]

“What happened to UI interfaces?” As a front-end guy: “ADA/WCAG Compliance”

[@yungmetr0135]

WCAG standards are so ridiculous not even FAANG meets them most of the time

[@ToddMagnussonWasHere]

@@yungmetr0135 At a company who mostly does, but it can be extremely taxing at times keeping it stable, mainly because of other devs.

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

So those are EVIL?

[@ToddMagnussonWasHere]

@@JSSMVCJR2.1 Depends, suing pizza websites for 2 million dollars over an inaccessible experience?

[@JSSMVCJR2.1]

@@ToddMagnussonWasHere Did that happen?!

[@notfamous649]

love your content please never stop making videos like this!!!

[@dawidziu4351]

I've never done it before, but this video encouraged me to create my own material. This complete misunderstanding of what creating user interfaces is all about and the inability to distinguish art for art's sake from designing practical things really deserves to be distinguished.

[@HDTomo]

The problem is that 90s and 2000s designs are crappy and rely on weird photo realistic icons, and all it reminds me of is those old products made of that half translucent crappy plastic with ugly curves, so we went as far away from them as possible

[@ux_arjun]

I always love watching your videos! You should have way more subscribers, thanks for always posting great content. I’ve been inspired by sci-fi movies throughout my life and would also think how those are probably where a lot of people get their ideas!

[@Carhill]

Hey Enrico, curious, what's that instrumental music that starts playing at 8:55. I hear it all the dang time and would love to look up the artist.

[@jrock20859]

It's the reason why books are all written with a similar font or why paper is usually white. It just works better, there's not much else to it. People use lots of apps and go to websites all the time, why would they want to have a to learn a new UI Everytime. It makes no sense

[@litjellyfish]

Spot on. Only thing I can agree with is that say iOS minimalism was taken to extreme when say the top navigation buttons lost there button signals and just because text labels that you need to learn was buttons just “because there is always buttons there at the top” I think that interactive elements still could had kept a button background in a color just subtly darker than the other background. But apart of that I think a book is the perfect comparison. And for sure that was the reference and goal for Apple when the redesigned iOS from the older “shiny 3D interphase )

[@ChiefBridgeFuser]

Fundamental thing I think you're getting at is narrow optimization, in this case speed of use, drives out all other considerations. Cap-touch in automotive applications is horrible because it requires vision to be moved from road to UI, tactile isn't a thing there -- it is designed-in distracted driving. As usual, you vids are great!❤

[@gamereactz]

I think you are correct but bias, i actually enjoy the simplicity and that hiuse was a nice house with low maintenance. 😅

[@Henry-sv3wv]

3:50 We're gonna die! Old Space ship: Just use this switch! Elon Space Ship: Just get lost in sub menues trying to find the button that saves your life

[@Cyfrik]

Some wires get damaged and the display goes dark. Old Space Ship: Just feel your way to the right button by touch. Elon Space Ship: Completely blank screen, impossible to know what menu you're in, or if it even registers touch actions.

[@Luismvm90]

I think you missed one of the main reasons why designs are the way they are today... And that's mobile devices. Responsive design forces you to simplify everything, the less detailed the easier it is to scale to all devices. That's not really something that will change unless mobile devices grow to the size of PC monitor.

[@damaramu.]

I mean, the way things have been going with phone screen sizes, PC monitor sized phones doesn't seem to be completely out of the picture.

[@kwanele_dev]

The "unnecessary" is what makes life exciting and much more worth living. If you remove the "unnecessary", the thing becomes lifeless and unrelatable. If people can't relate to something, they feel alone and neglected.

[@yomanyo327]

What was the name of that screen saver/picture for android at 2:57? I used to love that!

[@namesurname4666]

it's called nexus, if you have an android phone you could install the apk i think

[@SamPearman]

I detest the modern style of UI/UX. It takes me so long to do anything, with these giant buttons that may or may not be clickable, but that all look the same, and might not have well defined edges, but that take up like 1/4 of the screen each for no reason at all, so I end up having to scroll up and down the giant list until I locate the one thing I was looking for, that's plain, and even if it has an icon, it's flat and colourless and honestly maybe only barely hints at what it does. All of these things and more together lead to me spending minutes adjusting settings that would've used to take seconds.

[@romancernjak]

I'm amazed you didn't mention LCARS... one of the most beautiful but also completely abstract and incomprehensible interfaces ever.

[@Jules_Pew]

Wasn't most of the graphics done by flash? As flash was an easy way to infect your computer, it got dropped fast. I do remember it being hard to avoid clicking on a moving object and accidentally going to another site.

[@cmw3737]

Android file clean still has an animated android popping up and slam dunking the files into a bin. Little things like this are still around and are cool for occasional things like that but for things you do every day they get annoying fast if they slow things down or eat your battery. I learned user interface principles like discoverability (let me play, explore and easily find new features), forgiveness (let me try and go back and undo if I get something wrong), consistency and context awareness (show me what is applicable as much possible from where I am not force me to go back down a tree of single actions) when I studied computer science. Design patterns have partly kept the consistency part but I'm often amazed and frustrated by how badly the others are often lacking now. There should be multiple routes to get to an operation depending on where you are and discoverability is so bad that it's hard to switch operating systems that assume users just know things by now. A lot of this has been the switch to touch screens on phones which has spilled over into desktop leading to the dropping of useful things like context menus and hover icons even though they still use a mouse. Conversely the new context of VR is still stuck with a lot of patterns designed for desktop, ironically including pointers, where gestures and context that takes into account head positions would make more sense. Context awareness in Android is really bad for this in having totally different ways to install apps, uninstall them, manage permissions and notifications and resources (memory, file space and network limits all being separate). These should all be doable from one context menu where the context refers to a single app, as well as from the perspective of the general action across apps. If I want to clear the images or cached files associated with an app I need to do that in a totally different way than to manage the notifications or permissions. Even consistency is poor. Windows has similar issues with control panel and system command lines and 2 different settings programs making it way to much faffing to make what should be simple changes. It's also going more toward less customisability which is sad while Apple has just started opening up customisability of the home screen of iOS. Being a power user that Apple knows better lack of customisability was a big reason why I only dabbled with iPads and didn't switch but with AI Apple seems to be more open to you choosing how you interact with it. The semantic awareness of AI will make discoverability a solved problem but its fuzziness means forgiveness and the ability to revert the AI's mistakes will become the crucial consideration.

[@litjellyfish]

Yes. One interesting thing. In Android the settings button has always been easy to access with a max 2 step interaction On iOS there is still only two ways to find settings. Search for settings or press the setting icon (that might not be present on your Home Screen) I always wondered why Apple never made it part of control center. Was it because they did not want users to go ikro setting as much ?

[@smirnovamaria9611]

In order to allow creativity back we have to allow users make skins for programs and apps, and share them between themselves. top creativity always shined through user generated skins Also, I like touchscreens but for the love of everything holy we need buttons and knobs back, at least for non work appliances. Touching different physical things makes people happy.

[@TheJesh]

Your video reminded me why I studied graphic design and UX design. All the amazing UI back then and now I do the same boring stuff. I wish there was a way to bring that back. Accessibility is a big thing but I always wonder, WHAT IF, apps could have a fun UI and an useable and accessible one like the old apps that allowed custom personalization and themes that had real UI changes not just slight color changes. You got me dreaming man. ❤❤❤

[@SpartanJoe193]

Last I checked you can have both nice looking interfaces and usability

[@solwaves-py5vp]

because it returns to a simple concept but prioritizes function, features that have previously been introduced will be removed so that they don't fill up resources in the data system, that's why we never again find features that we tried in the previous operating system. Even now, to create an interface on a website, we can use a template that has been provided, there are no more ideas or innovations to create an interface that really comes out based on ideas from inside our heads.

[@xenos_n.]

Hmmm, definitely seen this video topic twice before recently.

[@bigjd2k]

The rot started with that damn ribbon in Office. Biggest productivity waster ever. So slow to use compared with a menu! Then other companies started ruining their software by copying it!

[@litjellyfish]

Only windows software. And they did not copy it. Ribbon was part of the UI component in windows developer SDK. And yes it was and is horrible

[@IllyasArt]

Very few programs allow me to make the UI look as I want. Obsidian being the main one with so many options. I mean, you can even make it look like a terminal from fallout...

[@Faizan29353]

yea but my is potato so i cant go real al out

[@barutaji]

Linux ricing said hi

[@IllyasArt]

@@barutaji Yee, I tried switching to it a month ago. Unfortunately, I have too many programs that only exist on Windows to fully switch over. It is oddly miles better than Win11...

[@KevinVeroneau]

Response to the Vista comment... Linux had those visual effects and even more than Vista, but without all the bloat and slowness. The modern Linux desktop still has a ton of fun eye candy, and still uses much less resources than the latest version of Windows.

[@anaverageviewer4615]

The guy speaks of monotonous aesthetics when his entire set production looks like an apple keynote setup.

[@MiniKodjo]

When i was young i had a theory: the fancier the UI the crappier the software. Powerfull software always had a simple UI

[@mnmlst1]

What I hate most about new UI is that buttons and other components are all getting rounder and rounder. In a few years we will nivigate through circles. I want squares and rectangles back.

[@Roxor128]

I want proper rectangles back for screens! Down with the rounded corners, notches, and camera-cutouts!

[@treesworld_lp]

This video just speaks out of my soul. Thank you for making it.

[@AmoghSrivastava]

Love this video and such content! Thanks for sharing 🫡🙏

[@testtest-uh2gx]

I learned about human factors in relation to cs back in college - the truth is that the easier it is for the user to familiarize with the app, the quicker they can start generating revenue off of the user and retain user attention, leading to more money

[@Futurepointmusic]

07:46 this is such a great comparison! I always had this mindset when it comes to Urban Design and Architecture, but I never really thought of Product Design in that way. Love the message of this video!

[@psillypsymun]

I have a never ending debate with a friend. He says minimalism is a war on art. I prefer clean, simple things. My argument is we got our senses pummeled by advertising that spammed us with bright colors and busy patterns. McDonald’s was a red and yellow nightmare. Of corse they used colors the way they did because red is supposed to make you hungry and impulsive apparently. I think society got burned out with busy design. And now their stores are minimal and muted. I much prefer this personally. I think UI went too far and minimal designs just are more calming. Especially in a world stuffed with overstimulation. Also I think that modern minimal house looks much better than those old buildings. Not that the old buildings aren't beautiful.

[@taintedtapper]

seems like the solution isnt just about making things stand out but granting people the tools and options to refine the website to their liking, and making it friendly enough that they can explore that stuff. love the Arc browser for that regard.

[@MasterSquad12]

4:24 There are reasons like some countries don't have faster internet, takes less load and helps in emergency situations! But yes they're boring and complicated...

[@battokizu]

Ui's also weren't slow like they are today. Having more power than was fathomed back in the 90's in your hand that get wasted on stupid unnecessary paradigms like "background apps" and "always on" like it's some post post modern english lesson. Nothing is straightforward and everything is obfuscated, everything that consumes battery life and what programs are actually executing and consuming cycles in your processor and no ability to turn off things are not even important and the os dares to say you may break things by "forcing" an app to die, as if it's a biological creature. When I want something to happen it should, regardless if it breaks my system in half. The notion that phones are not mine, and the fact that tampering with them is somehow worse than death itself is also a mystery. Idk my rambling isn't coherent but I hate modern software developers that keep with the status quo.

[@fenixman]

Great video, thanks ! I just wanted to add that the need for responsive interfaces is also a strong force pushing towards simplicity.

[@howwitty]

Two words: vertical integration. The same company that "licensed" the software that ships (for a price markup) on a computer you "bought" even though you didn't ask the manufacturer to install it can also turn that computer off and on whenever it wants. And it can offer the singular same fucking UI to everyone with no customization and the added perk of constant surveillance. And I'm sure every other company that wants vc funding or to be acquired by another larger software company will do the same thing.

[@priyapianosongs7390]

9:16 which movie is this scene from?

[@CedarPass]

100% accurate. Well done (again), Enrico.

[@FernandoAraujo86]

I think I that one major reason for the uniformity of design is that people are just used to them. The value your app or website provides should be hidden behind the challenge of learning to use a new interface. Good design is when all the affordances and signifiers are easily understandable. I totally agree with the importance of rich micro interactions. Communication wise, is like someone serving you on a restaurant and make a great joke on the perfect time. It makes the experience a lot better. Great video, thanks!

[@shudderranz5919]

i have used the UIs just before the minimalist revolution and even today i use plenty of UI. so what i have observed is, we humans actually prefer something less complicated like that Apple Newsstand and just a minimalist looking news feed because it makes the task at hand very simple

[@woreno]

the truth is that a top few companies sterilised their user interfaces and the whole world followed like a cult.. those companies will incorporate small fancy things like animations and so, mostly to sell they product each year. My theory is that they can depress users and make them buy things again giving them a new graphic treat and with this the UX creators community will slowly restore their lost half brain allowing to be a bit more creative

[@madelineariah]

Just wanna say, that Apple Pen shadow thing mentioned toward the end of the video makes absolutely zero sense because when you rotate a circle, its elliptical shadow would still remain in constant alignment with the light source behind/above it unless the light source itself changes position. So yes, some things can be overkill.

[@anureshmft6385]

Also somehow, companies have managed to create their OS bloaty and heavy even with a minimal interface. Do we really need 8 GB of RAM on an android phone, that still lags while opening Settings app? Material YOU is so ugly with it's widgets and color palettes.

[@bltzcstrnx]

The bloat of modern software mostly comes from assets, especially graphics. With modern phones and laptops high pixel density you need high resolution images. These are all the icons, textures, background images, etc, that need to be loaded into the memory. Icons nowadays need at least 1024px boxes at minimum, or else they'll look blurry. Larger images need to be 2K or 4K in resolution. And in competition with multiple apps, you don't want your app icon or background to look blurry.

[@MNaka-uf9yz]

Very intersting topic and well presented! There are other factors for these rampant design patterns, for instance: creativity is cut by the excessive use of javascript frontend frameworks for websites (react, angular...), most don't bother creating specific modules for them for time constraint reasons, lazyness or the sake of consistency. Also the tech industry is now a "leader - follower" situation, in the 90's and 2000's many tried to inovate and differenciate themselves, now a few are leading and everyone else follows, you'd be ill advised to stray from the carved path.

[@Kani8122]

In the 90's when "cool" UI's was not possible yet due to technical limitations, designers were still at least *trying* to make it look nice with little things like the pseudo-3D borders in Windows.

[@marwinthedja5450]

What Spotify did to the heart-icon is just dumb. The heart icon is a design pattern that everybody understands - add an item to a list of favorites. The plus-icon on the other hand .. Sure you see it on FABs but it's meaning is far more ambiguous than the heart... And it's definitely not suited for a button that only has one single function.

[@PitchWheel]

Very beautiful, congratulazioni! Well not only beauty has gone away from UIs, but also options. Technical options have been progressively hidden behind menus and often completely removed. I think that there's a misunderstanding: how things are presented to the user for simplicity and with the idea of driving the user towards a certain behaviour, should not drive towards "removing" options and control over the the product.

[@Cyfrik]

Honestly, I've been annoyed at the "clean interface" trend since the late 2000s. More often than not, removal of features is its main purpose, while user-friendliness is the excuse.

[@rano12321]

Great video, hit too close to my heart. Also, there's one mainstream program that let's you go all in with customisation like nothing else, its Reaper. Its made by the same guy who made winamp in the 90s, the audio player example you showed in the video.

[@senichiuwu]

bruh that fake fly bug thing in the intro terrified me ;-;