Are you guys tired of the "Material You" design? I don't really like the huge paddings on everything aspect of it. Also a lot of it feels too flat. What do you guys think?
As a professional UX designer, the padding is the least of the issues.
I'm hoping I get used to it, but I miss more skeuomorphic design. It's like a designer wanted to push it to be edgy and forgot about real people using it.... which describes the bulk of Apple design, too, for that matter. I think we overshot the balance point.
Edit: forgot my real point halfway through commenting: I will say even that isn't the worst of it, though. The dynamic theming is a bit of a branding nightmare.
The dynamic theming is a bit of a branding nightmare.
Probably one of the reasons I like it. Big red company icon next to the big black company icon, next to the big pink company icon. Nah, I'll take the uniform design, please.
But companies like to brand for, among others, usability and legal reasons. They aren't going to participate in neutering the brand they have invested so much in. It doesn't really matter if the user "likes" it because it's pretty. What matters is if the companies pouring money into app development like it, and if the users can easily identify the apps they want to use. That's why it has such low adoption.
Most apps aren't "choice" apps. Things like banking, transit, etc. I doubt you'd change your bank or refuse to take the bus just because they don't allow their app to be colored based on a random pixel measurement from a background image. I'll go out on a long and guess you'd also not choose an app with that option but fewer features. And if so, I'd like to think you'd be in the limited minority.
Edit to clarify: Good companies, given a choice, will by and large invest in material (pun intended) improvements over a confusing and variable prettification feature with no real usability advantage.
True, which is why I said prioritize. If I have no other option, I have no other option. Some of my open source, small project apps have already made icons available. I really have a hard time understanding why a big (or even small) business is so resistant to it other than they want to train the customer as opposed to listening to consumers' minimal requests.
As it is now, apps without the material you theming go on my second "page". Only apps with material you go on my main screen.
Because big companies have a lot more on their plate than startups or open source that may or may not pan out.
Anyone with a modicum of skill in observation who has worked in such environments knows exactly why the little guy (especially a little guy with free labor) spends a lot more time or money on less essential UI.
I've been in UX design and marketing/branding for over 20 years, mostly enterprise (large corporations.)
It's not hard to throw together a few vector lines to shape an icon. What's hard is designing one that will work in all situations and meet requirements across various platforms, rendering appropriately in all screen sizes and resolutions at any relevant size, as well as when printed on a billboard or on the side of a pen in one to four+ colors.
But designing icons falls under illustration/graphic design, which isn't paid nearly as well as UX design for a reason. I do things like the above paragraph if I need to rest my brain for half an hour.
So believe me when I talk about why the people who invest the most in tech generally aren't interested in throwing a monkey wrench into that just because a few designers and users like the novelty. There are, of course, a few exceptions to that general pattern.
As long as it's an option, I really don't care. I like stuff having their distinctive look, but I will never say no to more options, especially regarding customization.
Yeah, I’m not going to say Google doesn’t waste space. There’s definitely a difference between stylistic padding, and literally not using a section of the screen for no reason.
My only issue is not easily being able to scroll to the bottom without overshooting to flip pages. I hate not being able to flip pages from the top, but not being able to quick scroll to the bottom too is really counter intuitive.
I'm just kind of sick of Android in general, tbh. Google has killed off almost everything that made it fun to play with new Android versions, and somehow made it less intuitive/easy to use for advanced/experienced users in the constant pursuit of - ironically - ease of use. For example: why is it now a swipe and three taps to disable wifi in the Quick Settings panel, when previously it was a swipe and one tap?
It drives me nuts that I need to drag down twice to adjust screen brightness. It just feels icky to do that second drag, even hiding the brightness slider behind a button would be better.
I don’t like material or material you. They feel confused and they mix layers on top of your content which gets in the way to me. I don’t like the loud colour sections on headers against the stark white content backgrounds, it’s all too much.
Despite fear of sounding snooty, material is bauhaus design without the authentic materials, and the design elements are so focused on purism of being “material” that they forget they could be straightforward.
Personally I love it. It was certainly a very jarring change from what I'd grown accustomed to in the years prior. But it's playful while also being clean and professional. Hope more devs implement it in their apps as time goes on.
I love the original material design introduced in lollipop and gets polished in subsequent versions. Material you feels... idk, unfinished? I don't really mind the "bigness" of it, sure it could've been smaller, but what I really dislike about it is the color system that seems half-baked, for example I use a grey wallpaper and MY gives me light blue instead.
I can't stand it, honestly. I recently moved from a samsung phone after like a decade of using nothing but samsung to a pixel phone and I really dislike how fat random ui elements are. The volume control is confusing to look at because it's gigantic, there's less quick settings tiles because the ones you do get are giant, and I dont really like the colour tint across the entire OS. Just because my wallpaper has grass in it, my whole phone shouldn't be baby shit green.
I like it fine, I just wish Google (and Microsoft, Apple, etc) would decide on a consistent UI theme instead of completely changing it every few years. They don’t even have time get all their first party apps up to date with the latest design trend before they move on to a new one, and third party apps are even worse. I have apps on my phone in like 4 different UI styles now.
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