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Google has an interesting history with design. For years, the company 's approach to design was – well, mostly nothing.
To be fair, it was kind of that way by, ahem, design: In Google's early days, according to the picture painted by numerous accounts (and evidenced by the products of that era), the Google design strategy was quite literally "no design "- because speed is what mattered most at that time, and adding visual flourishes It was a different era in computing, and the emphasis on user experience we know today had not yet come into focus.
Then came Android 5.0, Lollipop, and the Advent of Material Design. Suddenly, Google had a cohesive and distinctive visual identity for its products. Google apps and services, starting with Android and spreading to the full series of mobile apps and their desktop equivalents, gained personality. Each app or interface element has a recognizable and often bold color palette that combines it with the rest of the ecosystem by way of broad patterns and guidelines.
Like any other standard, Material Design evolved from there. Every year brought in new twists, turns, and exceptions to the rules – and such progression is not only inevitable but often invaluable. Recently, though, I can not help but feel that Google is losing sight of what made Material Design so compelling. And every other time is coming to the most recent visual style, I find myself cringing a little inside.
The latest example is Google Keep, the note-taking service that has long been instantly identifiable by its bold yellow theme:
JR As a redesign rolling out to users this week, Keep in touch with what you want and what you are looking for.
JR The same progression is taking place
JR And it's the same shift we're seeing in the world, and we've been talking to Google and Android-centric entities like the Phone and Contacts apps:
JR Other Google apps are almost certain to follow suit soon. A video published this year earlier, for instance, showed a mock-up of how the Gmail Android interface may look like it's made over. (Hint: It looks plain and white, Very plain and white.)
The only real identifying quality is the utter Lack of any identification quality
In all the cases, the trend is the same: The distinctive colors that each appeals to – and Android itself, along with the greater Google ecosystem – a splash of personality and makes them feel lively, charming, and easily identifiable favor of a bland, generic feeling nothingness. I'm all for minimalism, but there is a difference between an unnecessary interface and a stripping it. At this point, all these apps, the only real identifying quality is the utter Lack of any identifying quality.
What made of material design is the way to create its own identity. In a story I wrote about early material design success stories, Russell Ivanovic, the developer and co-founder of the company behind the frequently-praised podcasting app Pocket Casts, summed up the standard's strengths:
Our app is fairly distinctive on most of the platforms that it's on. … One of the first things we said we are not up to some stark-white. We want to take the time to add the little details and make us feel better.
What Ivanovic describes how it works, what is it? Did not want – the "stark-white UI with just a few floating buttons on it and some shadows" – is exactly what Google is doing now. Other parts of the company's current design are arguably positive, but the elements are largely overshadowed by the whitewashing of personality.
This is a new version of Android for Android and Google for Android. Everywhere I see another app or element lose their identity and join the blank "blank canvas" club, I feel a little more blue (or, if we want to translate the feeling of Google's current design paradigm, a little more … blank ).
If there's one bit of consolation, it's the fact that, well, this is Google. And will be invariably be new again before long.
Until then, I guess we'll just get used to bland blank canvases where our warm, familiar friends used to live.
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[Android Intelligence videos at Computerworld]
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