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The new iOS redesign is bold. It’s a radical shift toward a polar opposite direction from its felt, faux-leather, lifelike user interface aka. Now it’s completely bare and it’s shocking.

Apple, known to execute confidently to the smallest details can no longer fulfill that promise. The icons are horrendous, the user interface lacks structure and everything feels unpolished. But it’s not all bad.

As designers, we must not forget that we design for the people. We must gain empathy and ride on the arc of modern design. Currently, it means dramatically flattening our hard-earned visual style. Admittedly, many of us are victims of. This will certainly test our ability to adapt. So far, the reactions I’ve seen at WWDC,,, John Gruber’s have been overwhelmingly positive. Yes, designers will, but who can blame them?

They’ve been thoroughly educated by the same company who aims to re-educate them. What we’ve known of Apple is no more. It’s a blank slate, lead by sir Jonathan Ive who is now leading both software and hardware design. Visual Design It’s very flat.

Far more than I envisioned. For any designer that have been used to as well as OS X, this will come as a shock.

The kind of shock that makes you question if you’re in the “cool” generation anymore. It’s uncharacteristic of Apple to be behind, following the footsteps of Google, Microsoft, and even Yahoo. Apps like Calendar and Mail will very much remind you of Google’s counterparts. Even the Weather App looks like.

But it was bound to happen. Flat design relies strongly on, and very little on gradients, shadows or textures to set itself apart. To understand why, one must zoom out a little and think how Google and Yahoo, or even Microsoft came up with such direction. Yes, it was because of Apple. The iPhone’s UI and good typography such as Helvetica Neue Light are practices professed by Apple since the dawn of the modern mobile design.

So, instead of thinking how Apple is copying, you must instead look back at the history of influences. Everyone influence each other to collectively create what is truly modern for the new generation of users who are well-educated about technology and in turn unfamiliar with dated visual references such as a reel-to-reel tape, leather calendar or poker table. Past the hit-or-miss visual appearances, iOS 7 has depth. In fact, it does a lot of things right. It has vitality. It’s truly modern with its, thin typography and white UI. Unlike Android’s Dark/Gray UI, Microsft’s Black and white UI, Apple uses white prominently and elegantly.

It feels very clean and Zen. Visual Structure and Inconsistencies It’s now very hard to tell the difference between the header and the content. Both generally use the same colors and very subtle variants of gray/white. Buttons no longer look like buttons – they’re blue texts. Sometimes, you will see strong shadows that look out of place like on the ON/OFF toggles. Even weirder, there are paper textures on the Reminders app. IBooks still uses wood.

• The Spotlight feature was quite hard to find. It now can be access by swiping down on the Home Screen rather swiping right. Strangely enough, once you enter something, it’s not super clear how to get out of that screen. • Some colors don’t quite work and have very low contrast.

Yes, it’s uncharacteristic of Apple to lack such execution. Translucent UI This is the best use of blurred backgrounds I’ve seen. It works really well on all backgrounds without compromising readability or playfulness. This design method can be quite generic as the colors are typically pre-selected. In iOS 7, it blurs the actual background even while you interact with it, bringing out the vibrant colors underneath. I’m actually debating if they’re using a Screen or Overlay blending mode.

Messages animates the blurred blue bubble underneath the keyboard, Controls Center adds a nice-looking white layer while Notifications adds a darker gray layer. It feels like an ultra-modern frosted glass layer.

Sometimes, it evens feels like the credit card’s. In a way, that’s modern Skeuomorphism, without the extra textures. The content is the hero. Typography The thin typography works. It borrows from the world of magazines.

Generally, fonts are bigger, therefore more readable. Since buttons are now texts, they come in bigger sizes. Quite frankly, they’re very self-explanatory, while not overblown like in Windows 8 which can be sub-optimal for spacing. Accessibility in iOS 7 now offers better support for larger fonts. Interestingly, when you speak to the older generations of users, you’ll notice that one of main questions they have is how to make fonts bigger.

So, this is a welcome change. At the WWDC, Apple announced some exciting features like Autolayouts and better accessibility. Animations Animations are my favorite part, starting with the zooming into each app – it feels intuitive because your eye can follow those movements naturally.

As you open the bottom Control Center or swipe down the Notifications, you never loose context. • Notifications uses physics and bounce back. • There is a very elegant animation when you first land on your home screen where all the app icons fall in place. Also on the Home Screen, as you tilt your phone, there is a Parallax effect. Technically, the background simply moves toward the direction where you tilt your phone.

Not game-changer but it can please a crowd. It looks like magic. • In Messages, as you scroll, there is also a Parallax effect. It feels very organic and fun. • The “Push” transitions are now replaced with a slightly more polished page hover transition.

It feels smoother. Solving Problems I was in the room along with 6,000 developers watching the Keynote. There were a lot of excitement. At one point, one person even screamed “I love you”. That’s because fundamentally, iOS solves many problems elegantly: • The whole lock screen can Slide To Unlock.

It feels much easier now. • Bottom swipe gives access to quick Brightness, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth controls. It even added quick access to Camera, Calculator and the new Flashlight. This isn’t some gimmicks – all those functions are well-used. • Folders can now have an unlimited amount of Apps, swipable inside them.

• The App Store has a much improved search and has a beautiful download animation. Moreover, your apps will now update in the background.

• Swiping from the left edge of the phone on iOS 7’s apps will go back to the previous screen. This effectively solves the I blogged about earlier. • The multi-tasking feature is quite well-executed. • Safari has a Pinterest-like way of hiding/minimizing the navigation bars. Additionally, the tabs feature has a brilliant design that allows unlimited tabs. • Photos now have filters built-in and are cleanly organize by time and location.

The list goes on Final Thought This is my personal experience as someone who attended the WWDC and who tested the iOS 7 beta for a day. I sincerely think that this design will grow on you. But that doesn’t mean Apple shouldn’t fix those ugly icons. 122 responses to “iOS 7 And The Transition To Flat”.

Well, that depends on what on iOS6 you’re comparing to. It’s simpler than Podcasts, but not simpler than say Calendar. The new Calendar doesn’t look simpler, even though visually it’s more bare.

I think colors are good to use to establish levels of importance and iOS 7 is pretty smart about it. The translucent blurred backgrounds work. They make the text very readable and that’s the most important problem to solve. Apple may lack execution and perfection, but is not far from hitting a homerun with its customers. The reactions were very positive.

I agree with you in general. However, there are some things lacking in the UX department. What Apple has done, is taken the things like “swipe to unlock” and “swipe to answer” and taken them as something everybody knows about. The problem is, that new users, don’t. They don’t have the iOS 6 experience where everything was still stipulated in the UI. Next to that, I agree about the icons. I think this is really swiss and all, creating a grid and sticking to it.

Which has something to say for it, because you would expect the icons to be more consistant. But, they don’t. Unfortunately:( Lastly, the on / off state of buttons, mainly in the music app are pretty unclear. When I tap “shuffle”, it changes to “shuffle all” and becomes bold. So what does it do? When is it on?

(there are more such small things that do need looking at). Dear Meng To, Really awesome stocktaking on the current OS, it’s small no. Of fallacies yet overtly overlooked functions.

Yes, its a transitional period and I believe Apple will scrutinize each and ever complaint embedded within the Beta version religiously more than ever. I think when it releases a lot of the brownie points depends upon the functions the OS offers and that’s where I think they’ve scored. If they get the ugly iCons out of the way(Safari,Settings, et al) I believe you have a great recipe brewing here. It’s impo to remember Jony Ive got just 7 months to work on this and it looks 75% good. 25% will obviously depend on further transitions. Hope for the best.

I don’t think that the new lock screen is much easier for users. Firstly it’s not clear instruction whether users have to swipe to left or right to unlock it ( there is no visual indication except the Up ARROW icon which can be misunderstood as Swiping Up indication to unlock). Also on light background, it’s so hard to read the text due to white and thin typography. They could have just put some dimmed gradient background to bring out the text or perhaps using the Helvetica Neue MEDIUM instead. I just don’t understand why Apple would go this far. If it’s not broken, why fix it?

Instead of they could have focused on enhancing what iOS 6 have been missing out on ( for example that Multi Tasking feature ). Just because, as you claim, Apple ‘influenced’ Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, doesn’t give Apple the excuse to use the concepts and functions already present in other OSs, especially Android. I don’t understand how you could justify the use of these features.

Honestly, before I read that claim, I was in a “to each his own” mindset; now, I feel the need to make my point. The Control Center has been in Android since 4.1 with Quick Settings. IOS7’s multitasking looks eerily familiar. Scrolling folders? Been there, done that. And Samsung has been using that same lockscreen concept (slide to unlock from anywhere on the screen) for years (and yes, literally YEARS).

‘Looking pretty’ doesn’t justify the use of iOS7 at this point. You might as well get an OS that already has all of these features, and more. ‘Flat’ UI design is just plain bad UI design. The use of low-contrast, grey on white/grey, unsaturated colors pretty much goes against every best practice for UI design ever written.

It actually makes it more difficult for a user to discern one UI element from another – like driving in fog. This insipid trend that puts form over function also goes against every study that has ever been done on human visual perception and efficient HMI.

It is far easier for a human being to discern color-saturated elements from other elements based upon large variations of hue in a high-contrast display than it is to make the same distinction based upon subtle non-chromatic variations in a low-contrast display. Forcing users to actually read grey text on light backgrounds or look for shapes in low-contrast displays in order to interact with the UI places a higher visual and cognitive strain on the user and increases task duration. Designing a UI is about function and making the user’s tasks easier and more efficient – not trying to make a computer screen look like a book or art project. When you abandon well-researched tenets of visual perception and best practices for UI design in favor of ‘flat UI’ you do a grave disservice to your user.

‘Flat UI’ is what we get when the Marketing department dictates to the Engineering department. I think what you composed was very logical. However, what about this? Suppose you composed a catchier title? I ain’t suggesting your content is not good, however suppose you added something to maybe grab a person’s attention? I mean iOS 7 And The Transition To Flat Meng To – UI/UX Designer is kinda plain. You could look at Yahoo’s home page and see how they write post headlines to grab people to click.

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