laszlonagy wrote:
This clean, flat look is becoming the new norm in multiple systems like macOS, Windows 10, and also in iOS, if I am not mistaken.
Just because other fields and disciplines are adopting this "norm" doesn't automatically mean that it's the right way for this profession to follow as well.
Those are operating system interfaces and GUI's that you've pointed out.
They're expressly designed to cater to a wide variety of people with different tastes, needs, sensibilities and conditioning.
As such it would make sense to adopt as neutral and flat a look as possible, and which simplifies all functions and features as much as possible, and is reductionist in every sense.
ArchiCAD is a program that's (ostensibly) designed and developed to cater to a very particular and specific set of users with a specific way of working and a conditioning and training that adapts them to working that way.
Why anyone would then imagine that an architect or designer would be okay, .....or would want to use the same interface as an engineer for example,.... or a geologist, or a climatologist (by way of example).........just because others are doing it that way, is frankly speaking beyond me.
We're all trained to view, analyse and perceive the world in different ways from all those other professions so it would make sense that we also work differently from them, and that we also manipulate and assess graphical information, specifically, differently from them too.
This is essentially the same kind of reasoning that saw Revit end up with an interface that looks like it was pulled out of the backside of the unholy love-child of an engineering program and an even more byzantine and inscrutable engineering program. (Which,.....oddly enough, is exactly how Revit came about in the first place).
Once you convince yourself into believing that if everyone else is okay with mining through countless dialog boxes and drop-down menus by way of defining your user interface and that it should then be okay for Revit users - you end up with Revit.
Which speaks volumes as to why it's a horrible program for design (from a user-interface point of view), and which in turn boggles the mind as to why the developers of ArchiCAD who pioneered this field would now think it prudent to just "go with the crowd" and do what everyone else is doing.
I think the simplest and most straightforward assessment (which speaks volumes as to it's effectiveness) should be in the fact that the most common remark and review of it (- even from people speaking favorably of it) is ,....."I need to get used to it"....
...or... "Once I got used to it...."
