<story><title>Flat Design vs. Traditional Design: Comparative Experimental Study (2015)</title><url>https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281628009_Flat_Design_vs_Traditional_Design_Comparative_Experimental_Study</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>amluto</author><text>As a personal anecdote, I&amp;#x27;ve spent quite a bit of time watching toddlers interact with the world.  In my experience, if it looks like a button, a toddler can tell it&amp;#x27;s a button and will be interested in pushing it.  (And might even say &amp;quot;button&amp;quot;!)  If it looks like a switch, a toddler will be interested in switching it.  If it looks like a button on a touch screen, a toddler might still think it&amp;#x27;s a button.  If it&amp;#x27;s a flat blob that looks like every other flat blob designed by that designer (but looks nothing like a flat blob by other designers!), toddlers don&amp;#x27;t recognize it as a button.  Shocker, I know.&lt;p&gt;Obviously, the majority of computer users aren&amp;#x27;t toddlers, but I think there&amp;#x27;s a lesson here.  I really miss the old Windows 3.1 &amp;#x2F; 95 &amp;#x2F; 98 days when controls were more or less standardized and you could reliably tell which were buttons, which were radio buttons, which were okay buttons, etc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eitland</author><text>&amp;gt; Obviously, the majority of computer users aren&amp;#x27;t toddlers, but I think there&amp;#x27;s a lesson here. I really miss the old Windows 3.1 &amp;#x2F; 95 &amp;#x2F; 98 days when controls were more or less standardized and you could reliably tell which were buttons, which were radio buttons, which were okay buttons, etc.&lt;p&gt;Agree.&lt;p&gt;Also: tooltip help when you hover over an icon.&lt;p&gt;Also: menus (for discoverability)&lt;p&gt;Also: manuals&amp;#x2F;help files (yep, most software shoudn&amp;#x27;t need one, but now we are in a worst-of-all-state: new software is not self explanatory, doesn&amp;#x27;t use familiar designs and the manual is gone :-&amp;#x2F;)</text></comment>
<story><title>Flat Design vs. Traditional Design: Comparative Experimental Study (2015)</title><url>https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281628009_Flat_Design_vs_Traditional_Design_Comparative_Experimental_Study</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>amluto</author><text>As a personal anecdote, I&amp;#x27;ve spent quite a bit of time watching toddlers interact with the world.  In my experience, if it looks like a button, a toddler can tell it&amp;#x27;s a button and will be interested in pushing it.  (And might even say &amp;quot;button&amp;quot;!)  If it looks like a switch, a toddler will be interested in switching it.  If it looks like a button on a touch screen, a toddler might still think it&amp;#x27;s a button.  If it&amp;#x27;s a flat blob that looks like every other flat blob designed by that designer (but looks nothing like a flat blob by other designers!), toddlers don&amp;#x27;t recognize it as a button.  Shocker, I know.&lt;p&gt;Obviously, the majority of computer users aren&amp;#x27;t toddlers, but I think there&amp;#x27;s a lesson here.  I really miss the old Windows 3.1 &amp;#x2F; 95 &amp;#x2F; 98 days when controls were more or less standardized and you could reliably tell which were buttons, which were radio buttons, which were okay buttons, etc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dehrmann</author><text>&amp;gt; I really miss the old Windows 3.1 &amp;#x2F; 95 &amp;#x2F; 98 days&lt;p&gt;You could say the same for early iOS apps that just used the default Apple widgets and style. I think ~every app I use know has its own style.&lt;p&gt;Funny enough, this is less true on computers. Except games.</text></comment>