[mattkevan]

It’s because the higher the resolution, the worse those kinds of design effects look. It’s why they’re not much used in print design and look quite tacky when they are.

At low resolutions you need quite heavy-handed effects to provide enough contrast between elements, but on better displays you can be much more subtle.

It’s also why fonts like Verdana, which were designed to be legible on low resolution displays, don’t look great in print and aren’t used much on retina interfaces.

[bartread]

The font point aside, which I do agree with, the rest of your comment sounds very subjective to me.

I too prefer more distinction between different UI elements than is fashionable in recent years - and, make no mistake, that’s all it is: fashion - and don’t see why higher resolutions preclude that. That’s not to say we have to ape what was done 10 or 15 years ago, but we can certainly take things in a more interesting and usable direction than we’ve chosen to do since around 2013.

I find myself clicking the wrong window by mistake a lot more frequently than I did back in the day due, I think, to current design trends.

[II2II]

I don't understand why the effects would look worse at higher resolution, or why how they add contrast. The tacky part I do understand, as well as the point about screen fonts like Verdana.

To choose a relevant counter example: the Macintosh System Software prior to version 7 was also very flat. System 7 to 7.5.5 introduced depth in a subtle way and a limited manner. It was only around System 7.6 when they started being heavy handed, something that I always attributed to following the trends in other operating systems.

[mattkevan]

It’s because at higher resolutions you can see the flaws more easily.

They’d have to be implemented perfectly every time, otherwise the whole thing becomes a mess. Not everyone will bother to do this.

Also, often when creating designs, things look better the more you take away rather than add.

[vintagedave]

There are a couple of places where macOS still has Aqua-style icons. Not sure I should name them in case someone sees this and removes them, but... eh... set up a VPN but leave the credentials blank so you're prompted when you connect: that dialog has a beautiful icon.

It looks _just fine_ on a Retina display.

When Retina displays were introduced with the iPhone 4, gel-style iOS also looked just fine.

In print, we're interacting with paper and a fake reflective style looks odd. On a computer, we're interacting with glass and something reflective or high-detail feels very suitable. It matches the look to the medium.