GUI Fashion

Copyright © 2008, 2009 Arndt Roger Schneider

GUI Fashion
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GUI Fashion

Graphical User Interface Fashions existed from the very start.

The first fashion as such is the Pseudo-3D Interface. Motif and thus Tk are examples for Pseudo-3D. Pseudo-3D is characterized by a dominant gray background. Borders imitate raised oder sunken objects (Pseudo-3D), and usually have a rectangular shapes.

With the tremendous increase in graphical processing power a new kind of graphical quality becomes possible. X11 was excluded from this graphical abundance till XRender appeared.

The current trend can be summed up as follows:

Raised borders become solid and the window itself uses a raised gradient as the background.
The shape of Menu, Check (indicator), Radio (indicator) –button become non-rectangular. The control’s shape indicates its supposed function.
The borders of Menu, Listbox, Textfield and Canvas become solid, their shape remain rectangular. The same design that was used before Pseudo-3D. Yet, those changes are not general.
The Entry and Spinbox design is unaffected, still Pseudo-3D.

No trend can be deduced for Combobox, Tabset, Spreadsheet, Hierarchy and Scrollbar.

Clearlooks is a good example for the current trends. iTunes® also exhibit these trends; see "Settings for Party-Shuffle" for example.

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