What design language/guideline is better: Google’s Material Design, or Microsoft’s Fluent Design?

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    It’s a personal thing, I guess, but Microsoft UI designs (to me) look all god awful crap permanently stuck in 90’s computer UIs.

    Every time I see teams or -gagh- outlook, I have to vomit a little in my mouth, its just off putting.

    I don’t like google either but at least their UI mostly feels nice

    Then there is apple, but usually the “keep it simple” is way, WAY pushed too far.

  • kata1yst@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    I mean, it’s incredibly subjective.

    Personally I’m more a fan of material, but it isn’t without it’s faults.

  • fool@programming.dev
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    3 days ago

    Disclosure: I’ve done very little UI/UX.

    Google’s Material Design (wikipedia) is much more widely-adopted across OSes/Flutter/the web (see how many websites have that dropshadow topbar and ≡?); Microsoft’s Fluent (wikipedia) is Windows-first, but is usable anywhere.

    Both are based on responding to user actions. Fluent uses lightup acrylic (translucent) canvases (e.g. hover? border glowy.)

    while Google’s Material uses paper-esque whitespace, navbars, dropshadows, and round corners. (e.g. scrolling? dropshadow appears on nav)

    Think Microsoft Teams vs. Google Drive.

    They’re both full-fledged but Material You is way more common judging by places such as the F-Droid ecosystem on Android. As for which is “better”, Material You supposedly has better colorscheme flexibility since it ‘wants’ to adapt to e.g. user wallpapers. But other than that it’s really just preference (or whether relevant tooling exists :P). I know some devs use Material You for a predictable, unified look across Android apps, while others bend them to their will to reduce animations or whatnot.

    If you’re designing something, make sure you keep your own self in the mix too. Breezy Weather uses Material Design, but it’s more customized to have a unique feel than, say, TrackerControl (which also uses Material).

  • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    Material Design is nice, but “Material You” is a drastic misstep and garishly awful, extremely unpleasant to look at and interact with all around with the gross pastels (especially that skin colour one ewww).

    Hopefully we go back to the Android 8.1 - 10 design language as that was the best of Material.

  • Luna@lemdro.id
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    2 days ago

    That’s a subjective question. I personally like Material You more, but Fluent is good too

  • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com
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    3 days ago

    We used Fluent at a previous job. My recco? Don’t use fluent.

    I feel like the team ended up having to work around it for anything with any amount of complexity.

  • Uschteinheim@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Apple’s skeuomorphism was the best looking for me. Now everything is boring flat. I hate flat design, hope it goes extinct ASAP.

  • Maxnmy's@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Material Design is quite pleasant to my eyes in both light and dark mode. I don’t like Fluent Design as much. It’s too busy with the translucency.

  • glimse@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    What is the point of this community if questions like this are normal? Isn’t that asklemmy’s whole thing? I’m downvoted every time I ask

      • glimse@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Based on the other posts, I think it would fit right in over there. It only “fits” here because this community has no theme. It copied its name from the subreddit but didn’t try to mimic what made it unique.

        For reference, the subreddit was for “common sense” questions people might feel stupid asking. An example of a great post there was “how often do I have to wash a hoodie” or “do I really have to change my oil every 3000 miles?”

        • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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          3 days ago

          You’re absolutely correct, but I don’t think really anything can be done about this community nor others with similar problems.

          There just aren’t enough users who actually care about this type of nuance.

          There’s no point trying to uphold an ideal that just isn’t relevant to most users.

          • glimse@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            So what’s the point of this if there’s no nuance? That’s still my question. Why did people make these communities with subreddit names if they weren’t going to be similar places? It feels so…hollow.

            • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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              3 days ago

              I’m not really sure what you’re getting at.

              Lemmy is not reddit. It has its own history and culture. It’s totally fine if you don’t like it, but if you’re expecting it to be like reddit then you’ll just be disappointed and frustrated every time.

              The history around “why does this community have the same name as a reddit sub” is obvious. At some point it was expected to be the next incarnation of whatever sub, but that’s just not how things turned out for a number of reasons

              • glimse@lemmy.world
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                3 days ago

                I think the question is pretty straightforward…new subreddits were born out of a need for a niche. If there’s no need for the niche (as we both agree), why was this community made? The truth is that a lot of Lemmy communities are poorly cosplaying subreddits without having ever seen the movie. It looks like a duck but sure doesn’t walk like one

                • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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                  2 days ago

                  I disagree, subs are not born out of a need for a niche, they’re created when someone wants to be a fief lord. Of every thousand or so created, only a few gather any following, and the community reflects the desires of it’s users.

                  As I said it’s fine to dislike a community, but insisting that it be run according to your view of how things ought to be run is nonsensical.

                • can@sh.itjust.works
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                  2 days ago

                  We’re also so small. There’s less need for such tight rules.

                  If you feel this doesn’t fit the spirit you could make your own?

  • etchinghillside@reddthat.com
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    3 days ago

    Remind what a design language is?

    Is this like a brand guideline of specific colors and rules to follow? Or like a prestyled UI widget pack?