Transparent Ambition: on translucent user interfaces

Summary

Translucent user interfaces is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. Aside from movie visual effect trickery, it started out in Mac OS X's Aqua, followed by Windows Vista's Aero, followed by (then) OS X's Vibrancy, followed by Windows 10's Acrylic. Over time, more and more of the user interface has become translucent similar to foggy/privacy-preserving sheets of glass. The unstated goal has always been to "look cool". The stated goal has always been to "give more pixels to your content". The sparse, flat esthetic of iOS 7 and its successors held a tenuous alliance with these transparency effects; being one of few real-world physical effects allowed to be imitated. When waiting for the iOS 7 era to end and the crucible of history to turn once more, the card-like esthetic of some prominent new UI features looked like a hint. Instead, we got Liquid Glass, which is an ambitious implementation of a visual material and associated effects. They look impressive. They do add both personality and a trademark look. They also, to a first approximation, make the user interfaces worse. They are not as easy to parse visually - static, predictable positions are eschewed, or maintained under the condition that they do not look static and predictable. They continue the trend of leaving less and less color/ink for definition of the UI itself; text or symbols cast in Liquid Glass have worse legibility and are harder to make out, while user interface elements on top of Liquid Glass are positioned with the primary purpose to make a Liquid Glass UI look like a Liquid Glass UI. Well-known and time tested elements of design are, if not abandoned, then demoted below the desire to have a visually striking, consistent branding user interface. Apple's designers (and those of many other companies) come back to the idea of translucency giving order and imbuing personality. I cannot for the life of me understand where this idea comes from. When multiple layers of different imagery shine thr...