Is there a particular way you think it could be improved or do you just think that we shouldn't try to empirically compare something like flat vs non flat buttons?
I think these comparisons are silly because they are trying to find some blanket universal rule. What works most of the time might not work in your specific case.
> I think these comparisons are silly because they are trying to find some blanket universal rule.
Says who? The author goes into detail about what exactly they were measuring. The last two headings are "When Flat Designs Can Work" and "Limitations of the Study." Can you clarify exactly what you found "significantly flawed"? I don't get what you're trying to say by your wikipedia link.
> What works most of the time might not work in your specific case.
So what? Is it not worth knowing what works most of the time and under what assumptions?
> What works most of the time might not work in your specific case.
I feel like Flat Design works for a specific use case, though you'll have to imagine one because I don't know of any, but it has been applied universally.
Many interfaces I encounter nowadays seem like every interaction is an Easter Egg, where clicking / tapping around randomly is World's Best Practice for feature discovery.
For starters, rather than simply using flat design elements in place of existing design elements they could adjust the entire UX of the site to be "flat".
If you want to see how useful wings are, build a plane.
But then how do you account for the possible differences in the quality of the interface? Keeping the interfaces relatively similar except for the buttons and inputs makes it easier to compare the two.
This plane metaphor is ridiculous and unhelpful. We're not trying to measure "how useful wings are", we're talking about what the buttons on the inside of the plane should look like, we need two cockpits with different buttons.
It would be like attaching wings to a car, driving it down the highway, and then concluding that wings don't really help with speed.
Or another example would be be to take Pharrell's hat and placing it on some random person's head.
Context matters. Design is not the sum of its parts.