skeuomorphism is often seen as making interface versions of things match their real life counterparts, but it's more than just that.
consider a sheet of paper on a desk; you can switch out any kind of paper, any shape, any lines or grids or colors, and one thing remains constant: there's depth. the paper is not perfectly flush against the desk. there is a gentle rise, a soft shadow, a shape. even white paper on a white table will still stand out, just a little.
here? there is nothing. it is a completely flat wasteland. do you know where the textbox bounds begin and end? it's impossible. the "create a text post" may as well be part of the post, were it not for the fact that centering is apparently impossible.
i loathe modern design. i loathe this kind of "absolutist minimalism".
the greatest thing computer interfaces ever developed was depth, and every single fucking idiot has made it their holy mission to eliminate it.
Material Design™ is widely loathed (and rightfully so) for making every android app look the same shade of boring, but it did get one thing right, which was the use of drop shadows to convey "elevation" and separate elements along the z-axis, sort of (gasp, skeuomorphism...!)
p.s.: as i was getting the above animations for this post, i saw that they Updated material design to version 3, which totally ditches elevation and makes things much muddier and harder to parse. i found this very funny bit in the V2 spec:
this is a guideline showing why the shit recommended in the shiny new version 3 is less clear. lol. lmao.
<google> it collects data about best practices, then disregards them and drives into walls
x 100
one of these is clearer and causes me less eyestrain and it's the one on the left. i checked the contrast ratio for accessibility and it's 1.09 to 1. and that's apparently 3 levels of difference?? why is this the example you would show for why you should do it this way??
