To flat or not to flat?

Solid piece by Nick Bilton in the New York Times about the trend of flat UI: The Flattening of Design

Several thoughts:

1) I’m not convinced that flat UI is a good thing…in my experience it does make UIs seem simpler but often at the expense of visual priority and affordances. Many flat UIs suffer from a very real problem in which clickable elements are not obvious, and often look like non-clickable elements (because everything is flat)

2) Design as news still fascinates me. Three or four years ago you would never have seen an article about a UI design trend like this published in the New York Times. I love it.

3) I think that Heller is right when he says that flat UI is basically just a trend.

“Every so often there is a new fashion that comes about in design for any number of reasons, not the least of which is technology, and now there has been a reaction to mechanistic-looking design where you press a button and get a specific look,” Mr. Heller said. “In response, designers have started to turn to flatness.”