LET’S BE FWENDS ISSUE #13:

AND IF THE BOTS WILL RULE US, IS THEIR INTERFACE GOING TO BE FLAT?

Is it robots - or crows?

I’ve written about both, and the general sentiment seems to be that one of them will overthrow human society and rule over us. This beautiful essay about city crows leans towards the birds, and who can blame the author?

I, for one, welcome our new avian overlords.

User Interface Design: Flat UI Elements attract less attention

Nobody knows exactly when, but during the last few years of web design, the earth turned flat (again).

Flat design is very common these days. Even if you don’t know what it is, you’ve come across it. Either by usingApples iOS user interface for the iPhone, or even more prominently the Material Design visual language developed by Google and used in Android and all their web apps.

Nielsen-Norman recently performed study on the usability of flat design and came to the conclusion that flat user interfaces perform significantly worse than their non-flat counterparts.

It is a good reminder that beautiful doesn’t always mean usable. And the other way round? Otto Wagnerfamously said:

“Etwas unpraktisches kann nicht schön sein.“ - “Something impractical cannot be beautiful.“

The Pirate Riddle

Seems like I’m getting a little obsessed with game theory - but can you solve the pirate riddle?

Pedal Power

No newsletter without bikes. So here’s a bike-powered elevator. That’s it from this edition of Let’s be Fwends. Please highfive yourself, and get ready to watch the epic battle for world dominance that is about to start between birds and bots. 🐦 💥 🤖