iOS 7 正式推出之後，App Store 就開始提示有許多 app 需要更新，而這些 app 最大的一處改進是「為iOS 7 做優化」。然後，就看到它們的圖標被「拍扁」了， app 的 UI 也沒有用太多的紋理來裝飾，也比較強調動畫。
但這就是 iOS 7 設計的全部了嗎？看一看開發者、設計師是怎麼想的吧。
「（iOS 7）不再模仿現實中的視覺元素，而是模仿它們如何運作，它們的運動方式，以及如何其他元素如何與你的手指互動，」軟體設計工作室 Collective Ray 的共同創辦人兼創意總監 Jeff Broderick 說，「找到利用物理以及視差的好方法，是設計出好 app 的關鍵。」對於 iOS 7 來說，「看上去很棒」已經不是唯一，更加強調「用起來感覺很棒」的價值。
Jeremy Olson 是即將上線的 app「Hours」的開發者，他認為 iOS 7 製造了「直接操作」的錯覺。「（iOS 7）的想法是，讓人有一種直接在螢幕上實時、直接操作功能的感覺。而不是點擊一個按鈕之後，在另外一處看到反應。」蘋果一直都十分重視互動，而在iOS 7 中「互動」的地位有了很大的提升，成為一種哲學體系，甚至更多。
「如果偏離蘋果內置的普通 app 太遠，那麼使用者適應的速度也許沒有那麼快，而且還可能因為其中的『不同』而感到排斥。」OS X 上的快捷日曆軟體 Fantastical 的設計師 Michael Simmons 認為， iOS 7 剝離了不必要的視覺元素，而且將內容放在如此中心的位置上。「我看到一種不再隱藏在裝飾背後的 app 設計新方法——不再隱藏在虛假的設計背後。」真正重要的是，擺在前面、以及處於中心位置的東西。
「把iOS 7 簡單的稱為『平面化』設計是完全沒弄清蘋果真正做的是什麼。」Elements 的開發者 Justin Williams 說，「iOS 7 最大功能是，使用圖層去傳遞更深層次內容的過渡。」而蘋果對系統的思考是「運動」，他們透過運動來代表螢幕的切換，同時也模擬了現實當中的運動元素，以此 來告訴使用者到底他們處於哪個介面。
Pasquale D'Silva 問，「關於當下發生的事情，何不為你的大腦提供一點線索？」在《Transitional Interfaces（寫給工程師看的互動設計）》 他提到一個觀點，當在 app 裡或互動裡提供一點線索，能夠降低認知成本。此前接受 BusinessWeek 採訪時，Jonathan Ive 解釋 iOS 7 的設計變化，「創建圖層並非一種美學觀點。它是一種嘗試處理不同層次已存在的訊息的一種方法，以及希望讓你意識到你所處的地方。」
SOURCE: The Verge
iOS 7 apps are prettier, but are they better?
Apple design chief Jony Ive loves to preach about how design isn’t just how something looks, but how it works. Yet, in the first wave of app updates for iOS 7, most developers seem to have simply given their apps a facelift to match Apple’s latest software. Instagram’s latest update, for example, is very attractive, but just feels like a fresh coat of paint.
To Ive, iOS 7 is about more than a dash of color and Helvetica Neue
To Ive, iOS 7 is about more than a dash of color and Helvetica Neue. It’s about the physicality of the operating system, a functional skeuomorphism which helps people identify layers within apps as if they were papers on a desk. "It’s no longer about mimicking real-life objects visually, it’s about how they work, and the way things move and interact with your finger, and the rest of the elements on the screen," says Jeff Broderick, who co-founded software design studio Collective Ray, and is now creative director at ShopSavvy. If you pull up on the camera icon and then slam it down hard enough, Broderick points out, you can bounce your lock screen up and out of sight as if you had thrown a tennis ball into the ground.
"Finding a good way to utilize physics and the parallax effects are the key to making an app feel good," says Broderick. In other words, it’s not about how the wooden drawer holding your stuff looks, but about how it opens and closes. So have any apps made the jump yet — not just to getting the look right, but to getting the feel right?
It all starts with creating the illusion of "direct manipulation," says Jeremy Olson, creator of upcoming iOS 7 app Hours (pictured above). "It’s the idea of performing functions in real time by directly manipulating objects on the screen, rather than tapping a button in one place and seeing the result in another," he says. Swiping to scroll, pinching to zoom, and dragging and dropping objects are all examples of this. Apple has always focused on responsive interactions within iOS, but has given the philosophy an even greater role in iOS 7, where apps spring forth from inside their icons and pages within apps can be swept aside when you want to go back. Hours has buttons that expand and contract when you touch them, as well as highly legible text and clearly denoted colored areas you can tap. In combination, the two elements add up to an interface that’s easy to parse, and an app that’s better than it otherwise would’ve been.
It all starts with creating the illusion of "direct manipulation"
But, if Hours’ design and animations are so great, couldn’t its developers have potentially come up with these ideas on their own? The answer isn’t so simple. "If you go too far outside the norm of Apple’s built-in apps, the user isn’t going to adapt as quickly, and they may reject it for fear of difference," says Michael Simmons, the designer of Fantastical. Simmons is known for his attention to detail on realistic textures and buttons (as is Olson), but was relieved when he first found out about iOS 7. "iOS 7 stripped back extraneous visual elements and made it so content was center stage," he says. "I saw a new way to make apps that can’t hide behind varnish — that can’t hide behind phony design." What really matters is placed front and center, whereas before, wood panels and other ornamentations were considered paramount to helping a user understand how the app works.
Simmons’ current version of Fantastical, which is filled with pixel-perfect fake glass and "iOS linen" textures, is by no means phony, but he cites a variety of App Store chart-toppers that fooled users into thinking they were useful simply because they were pretty. "iOS 7 is about bringing functionality and utility to the forefront," he says. Fantastical 2, which launches for iPhone in the coming months, ditches the gloss and texture in favor of making your events as highly legible as possible — a mandate from Apple in iOS 7’s design guidelines. "The app is so much better because of iOS 7," but not just purely because of its stripped-down design.
"To call iOS 7 just a 'flat' redesign is discounting what Apple has actually done."
"To call iOS 7 just a ‘flat’ redesign is discounting what Apple has actually done," says Second Gear developer Justin Williams, who builds Elements for iOS. "The biggest feature of iOS 7 is the transition toward the use of layers to convey content depth," he says. On an abstract level, adding "layers" doesn’t sound like anything new — most apps already have various levels you can explore like a feed, and an underlying drawer of additional pages — but iOS 7 pushes for something different, Williams says. A large part of Apple’s vision for the OS is about motion, the transitions between screens, and about mimicking the real-life movements of objects in order to communicate where the user is inside an interface.
"OmniFocus 2 feels like the truest reimagining for iOS 7," says Williams, since it encompasses both a visual and tactile redesign. The app uses layers to communicate what’s happening when you tap on an item. Tapping "Projects," on the app’s home screen, for example, splits the page in half and fades the background away to expose what’s underneath, as if you’ve unsealed an envelope. If you long-press the back button at any time, the current page fades out to expose the home screen of the app, as if it had laid in wait until you needed it again. The theory is that when you pull away your content and expose what’s underneath, you’re creating a spatial relationship users can instantly understand. Reeder 2's new "share sheet," for example, slides out from the right side of the screen, on top of the article you're reading. App structures are no longer being built on letting the user move from one "screen" to another.
"OmniFocus 2 feels like the truest reimagining for iOS 7."
Even before iOS 7, some developers caught on to this useful interface paradigm. Facebook takes a similar approach with its photo viewer and Chat Heads messaging features, which pop into view on top of whatever you’re doing. Vesper slides your note’s header into the right spot when you tap on it, and Rdio introduced blurred, transparent glass overlays — which are now common in iOS 7 apps — and which hint at what’s underneath what you’re currently interacting with.
"How about giving your brain a clue about what’s happening?" advises Pasquale D’Silva in his seminal piece on "Transitional Interfaces," which was astoundingly prophetic of the interfaces in many new apps. iOS 7’s emphasis on bounces, swoops, and fly-ins that inform what’s onscreen seem to suggest that Ive agrees with D’Silva. It might seem obvious, but by adding a cue that one piece of an app or interface is above another, it lowers the cognitive cost of interacting with each onscreen element, say designers. "One of the things that we were interested in doing is, despite people talking about this being ‘flat,’ is that it’s very, very deep," Ive told Bloomberg Businessweek. "I mean, there is only so long you can make your shadows."
"How about giving your brain a clue what’s happening?"
The first crop of iOS 7 apps are in the wild, and while only a few seem to fully grasp Apple’s intent with iOS 7 beyond bright colors and circular avatars, the path ahead looks promising for users. "The more spartan approach to UI elements in iOS 7 almost guarantees that there is more focus on how things work," says Cap Watkins, design lead at Etsy. "Previously, a lot of time was spent on making interfaces skeuomorphic (with buttons, app icons, tape decks as podcasts, etc.). By stripping those visual elements away, you move the interface conversation toward one of function over form." And when your apps focus on function, instead of on serving a dollop of colorful but useless interface gumbo, users win, and an app is made better. And hopefully, the app is also made easier and more logical to use. "You pick the right sort of visual architecture, the right layering, and then it’s intuitive," says Apple software chief Craig Federighi, "[and] people without thinking are going to do the right thing."
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