Since the turnaround to flat design, everything that is supposedly superfluous (e.g. drop shadows of buttons) has been omitted. The consequence: users can no longer intuitively distinguish between active and passive elements.
What exactly is the problem?
- By reducing the design, interaction elements no longer stand out from the background and are therefore not perceived by users as clickable. In addition, input fields are not clearly visible and labels are reduced to a minimum. Everything looks "flat".
- Where the skeuomorphism depicted switches from the real world down to the smallest detail, including surface structure and light reflections, the flat design only shows coloured surfaces, such as a blue rectangle on a white background with a term in white lettering.
- Users cannot see what is clickable. Assuming that there must be further content and details linked on a website, users click on everything at worst: on every icon, every photo, every font, just to find some link.
- Even input fields that are not recognizable as such make users perplexed - and often result in calls to the provider's service hotline.
Recommendations from usability research:
- Take a step towards your users and rely on the so-called "Almost Flat Design".
- In this sense, supplement the minimalist design with important information for the users, such as targeted shadows, micro-interactions or calls to action.
- Google's material design offers interesting approaches.