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This page from Google Design on their “Material 3” UI language came to my attention after my snarky post about the ungainly new to-do app they bizarrely bragged about on Twitter/X this week. I don’t think this “Material 3” page is new — I think it’s a few years old — but I’d never seen it before.
First, it’s crazy that (in desktop browsers with a mouse cursor) they change the I-beam cursor for text selection to ... a circle. I guess it looks kind of fun but the whole point of the I-beam cursor is to enable precise character selection. They changed that to something that makes precise selection as difficult as possible. It’d be better to just use an arrow pointer than to replace the I-beam with a goddamn circle. This, from the UI design team.
Second, this paragraph made me honestly wonder if I was reading a spoof, a years-old unfunny April Fool’s “prank”. But as far as I can tell this is totally straight, not a prank:
These factors can be quantified in users’ responses to new M3 Expressive designs. We found a 32% increase in subculture perception, which indicates that expressive design makes a brand feel more relevant and “in-the-know.” We also saw a 34% boost in modernity, making a brand feel fresh and forward-thinking. On top of that, there was a 30% jump in rebelliousness, suggesting that expressive design positions a brand as bold, innovative, and willing to break from convention.
Nothing says rebellious and “in-the-know” like assigning precise percentages to “rebelliousness”, “modernity”, and “subculture perception”.
Update: Believe it or not there is video of the Google Design team putting this research together. Worth a watch.
Link: design.google/library/expressive-material-design-google…
