The Problem with Neumorphism
Neumorphism has received considerable attention in the past few months. Chances are, if you’re following UI trends, you may have come across any number of designs on Dribbble or Behance. The bigger question is, why haven’t we seen this trend actually be implemented?
Let’s start with the basics; what is Neumorphism?
It’s a play on words; new + skeumorphism= neumorphism
Neumorphism leans heavily on layers, shadows and angles to dictate hierarchy and context while embracing a minimal design language.
But to understand where neumorphism comes from, we have to dig briefly at its roots. Let’s look at skeumorphism first.
Skeumorphism as a design language was heavily influenced by real world objects and textures, and successfully presented by Apple on the first few versions of iOS and MacOS systems. It helped users to readily understand what they were looking at, with icons that were familiar and actions that were clearly defined.
We have come along way since then, with icons relying less on texture, replacing them with simplified iconography, and building associations over generations of firmware and hardware updates.
Once these associations took root, skeumorphism yielded to flat design, whose biggest proponent were Windows Phone who took flat design to its extreme. The Verge published an article remembering the success and failures of the Windows Phone operating system.
Flat design’s essence would live on in Google’s own design language; Material Design.
When Material Design first unveiled to the public back in 2014, it set the trend for how elements would flow on a page by mimicking real world artifacts. Using color, layers and contrast to highlight and bring prominence to content. These principles along with a preset library of elements was the driving force behind Google’s attempt to help services attain functional and creative output.
This was also Google’s answer to the agile movement, where a unique selling point (USP) could move from idea to implementation rapidly. By using Material Design templates, the idea was to offer speed and consistency to an app or web service, bridging the gap between design and development while boosting efficiency.
But Material Design suffered in one respect; by creating this library of templates and rigid rules the end result was a lack of diversity in creative output.
Material Design ultimately failed because every service began to look the same.
Microsoft have begun to internally implement the same kind of design promise for Windows 10 and their accompanying services like Microsoft 365, dubbing it ‘Fluent Design’. So far there has been positive reception to this, although Windows 10 is yet to prove itself. To this day, there are some Windows 95 icons floating around in the OS.
Nevertheless, Fluent Design is proof that while Material Design ultimately failed, it conceptually hasn’t.
So where does Neumorphism ultimately fit in? As a designer who has worked on projects alongside developers who build systems, apps and websites, I can tell you the answer is a little complicated.
The agile movement is still very much in vogue, which means time is essential on any given project. Ideas spread swiftly in this digital age. The first to launch a novel product usually takes a large slice of the pie i.e. the market share. Think Uber or Whatsapp. This pressure dictates the workflow for developers and programmers who rely on libraries and templates as much as possible to move from one task to the next. Designers have to work alongside this reality, and provide designs that toe the line between functional and pretty.
Currently, Neumorphism paints a promise of a sleek and modern future. This design trend has not yet proven itself simply because the mainstream community i.e. the developers and designers who collaborate on projects, have not adapted it, or at the very least not created a system where it can be wholeheartedly implemented from drawing board to a working piece of code.
Until developers and major distributors readily adopt Neumorphism, which in turn has to be adopted by the masses (after all the end users have final say on everything), Neumorphism is likely to continue living as the best possible version of a trend that may never come to pass.
