A Tale of Two Design Languages
Apple used to distinguish itself between the other tech giants by putting design first and engineering second. But then, at the 2014 I/O conference, engineering giant Google stepped up its design game and announced its own unifying design theory. Fast forward a few years, and we see that Apple is not longer the sole king of web/mobile design with its Flat Design / iOS Human Interface Guidelines (HIG), but that Google’s Material Design is gaining ground fast.
Google and Apple both follow different schools of thought when it comes to the interactions with their devices and applications. The usage of buttons, cards, depth, tab bars vs. drawer menus and navigation patterns are all things mobile product designers should take into account when designing for Android and iOS, but where do these differences come from? We can already learn a lot about these differences if we take a closer look at the root of both design languages: the Design Principles.
Content vs. Experience
The biggest difference in the Design Philosophy behind Google and Apple seems to be the role of the User Interface. While Apple puts its focus on the content, and sees the ideal User Interface as something subtle and appropriate, Google takes an opposite stand, striving for a bold and graphic interface that immerses the user in the experience.
You can feel these differences when looking at the Tech Giants’ own apps.
Apple chooses to give you a clear overview of all new mails, indicating subtly which emails are new. The only highlighted elements are the ‘flagged’ emails.
Google on the other hand brings you more of an experience, showing your latest received emails with logos, avatars and more extensive teasers. Even though this screen can be quite busy and colorful, the action button (‘Compose new email’) still gets the main attention by floating on top of the screen.
Imitating the real world
Apples approach of convincing people to use new technologies is to imitate objects or concepts of the real world at first - making it easier for users to relate (this concept is commonly referred to as skeuomorphism). Once users are used to these new technologies and applications, Apple then gradually moves away from these real world objects and more towards an abstract Flat Design.
While not contradictory, Google makes different use of the real world: with a layered paper approach, their User Interface uses more or less the same rules you would expect from real life paper, making complex User Interfaces more understandable - as it follows more or less the same rules of physics as the real world.
Bringing it all together
While Google and Apple are both living - and therefore often unpredictable - companies and both influence each other on a regular basis, there do seem to be some fundamental differences in how Google and Apple look at Product Design and the role they assign to User Interfaces.
Apple seems to be creating an abstract environment that’s more detached from the real world - a world with more clarity.
Google on the other hand seems to be making their products more part of the real world, a world with enhanced experiences.
The question now is how Material Design will evolve: will Google stick with its paper approach, or will they move more towards an abstract Design language, like Apple did?
