From Feng Shui to Flat Design: How the Designing for Efficiency Evolved into UX/UI

If you’re a graphic designer, computer programmer, or even just work on the internet in the modern era, you’ve probably heard the terms UX and UI, but do you know what they are? 

Have you ever gone to a website and gotten frustrated when you can’t find what you're looking for, a certain function doesn’t work like it should, or it is even just straining visually to look at? This brings us to the concept of UX and UI digital design, which stand for User Experience and User Interface respectively.  ​

It’s easy to recognize things that are drastically wrong, but the average internet user probably does not think much otherwise about the layout and design of the everyday websites and apps they use, and that’s because the whole purpose of good UX/UI design is to run so smoothly and seamlessly that users do not even think about it at all.  
​

What is UI/UX?

UX and UI in digital design often work in tandem, but make no mistake, they are in fact entirely different concepts. User Experience is the design concept that takes a user-led approach, which means that the layout and design of a digital interface is guided by what is best for the user. User Interface, on the other hand, takes an aesthetics-led approach, meaning that the aesthetic look of the interface takes priority in the design.  

Despite the relative youth of UX/UI digital interface design, with the actual terms as we know them only having existed for the last two decades or so, UX/UI design has changed drastically time due to changes in our understanding of certain influential concepts like psychology and ergonomics as well as the actual purpose of the digital interfaces we interact.  ​

This then brings us to the primary questions of the article: where does UX/UI design come from and where might it be going? What then does this mean for us and our devices? 
​

History & Origins ​

First, let’s take a look at where UX/UI design came from, and surprisingly it dates back to ancient China. 

Feng shui has its origins in 9th century BC China and revolves around the concept that people should feel in balance and at ease with their surrounding environment. This concept has been highly influential in Chinese interior design, where they use different colors, shapes, and objects to “maximize” the feng shui of the environment and give it a sense of balance and flow.  

Across the globe in the 4th century BC, the ancient Greeks similarly started developing concepts that we would later recognize as ergonomics, which looks at how tools and environmental features can be better used to improve efficiency specifically in the workplace. In the late 1800s, this idea was further refined through a more scientific lense by Frederick Winslow Taylor through Taylorism, and in the mid-1900s, Toyota took a more human-centered approach by creating assembly lines that included features where workers could suggest how to improve the process. 

Once the dawn of the computer came, many of these concepts transferred over into digital software and interface design, as people needed to be able to easily learn to interact with computers. This is where the term UX came from, with one of Apple’s early employees, Donald Norman, being given the title of User Experience Architect and coining the term “UX” design to encompass all of user experience design. ​

All of this history led to the defining of UX/UI design and influenced its original core principles, but how has it changed since its establishment? 
​

Modern Developments and Trends ​

Early UX/UI design in the 80s and 90s was far less complex than it is today, and the primary design principle was skeuomorphic design. Skeuomorphism was one of the first interface design concepts and is defined by design that mimics real-world objects and concepts. Some common examples of this could be the call icon being an old rotary phone, the save button displayed through a floppy disk, an envelope representing the email function, and the recording button for audio software resembling the red light on original audio recording devices. This was primarily to ease the transition between objects in the real world and digital software; if logos, icons, and functions looked like the closest real-world thing that shares their purpose, it would be easier for users to navigate them.  ​

Common digital symbols used for electronic devices: (from left to right) call, “save” function, email, and audio recording button. Credit: author. 

​While skeuomorphic design was ideal for early internet and digital interface users, they slowly fell out of fashion as people adjusted to the new age of technology, no longer necessitating the ease of this highly intuitive design style. This led to a design shift in the early 2010s, where flat design became all the rage.  Popularized by Windows 8, Google’s Material Design, and Apple’s iOS 7, flat design is a style that relies on simple, 2-D features and bright colors, and is often considered the antithesis of skeuomorphic design. A major benefit of flat design was that it's highly responsive, adapting easier to different screen sizes and interfaces and allowing programs to load faster, which was ideal as the internet started becoming more complex. 

2017 saw the beginning of the rise of immersive technology, first with features like voice interfaces and later with technology like virtual and augmented reality. These provided entirely new interfaces for both users to connect with their devices and companies to create features. Certain UX/UI design trends also emerged during this period between 2017 and 2020, the most notable of which were Neomorphism, Glassmorphism (and its similar counterparts), and Animation/Motion UI. While these trends have their own unique features, they all share a similar sentiment: attempting to create medium between the realism of skeuomorphic design and the minimalism of flat design, helping technology to feel slightly more personal and bridge the digital gap. 
​

​Three different types of UI design that were popularized in the 2010s and early 2020s: Neumorphism, a design style characterized by slightly 3-dimensional elements – Glassmorphism, characterized by a “frosted glass” appearance and dimensionality – and Motion UI, characterized by simple animated features. Credits (from left to right): “Neumorphism” by Le Paragone on Wikimedia Commons. “Health Tracker App on Glassmorphism” by Mark Vlasov on Dribble. “UI Animation Concept” by Alla Kudin on Dribble. 

​By the current year of this article, 2024, many companies create software that uses a combination of these features and design styles. Each decade brings a new trend, and UX/UI designers learn from the response, and bring the best features into the next generation. 
​​

What does this mean for UX/UI Design? ​

So, where does this leave us now? What can we take away from knowing all of this? 

Many modern designers focus a lot on reinventing the wheel, always trying to do something unique, but there may be a lot of benefit to sticking to old traditions. Feng shui has recently come more into the public eye, and for good reason; a lot of feng shui practices are tried and true and could even be good inspiration for UX/UI designers in terms of color palettes and arrangements. While digital UX/UI design may be very recent, there are rules of design itself that span across multiple fields, such as interior design, graphics design, and more. Toyota’s human-centered approach may be an important idea to return to now more than ever, as feedback and user input is the forefront of UX design.  

Additionally, another thing these trends of UX/UI design can tell us is that users seem conflicted between this need for technology and their longing to be more separate from it. The trends of the late 2010s brought us into an era of something in between the sentiments of skeuomorphic design and flat design; technology that felt both human and somehow impersonal, a sort of technological “uncanny valley”. Voice interfaces like Siri blurred the barrier of technology by allowing users a type of communication that felt more human-like but was still obviously digital in nature.  

Even new trends like Neumorphism and Motion UI and the resurgence of skeuomorphism seem to reflect indecision between wanting something that feels real and something that feels digital. Many UX/UI designers now face this issue; how does a designer balance both the longing for traditional, non-digital objects with the necessity of minimalism and ease of use? This dilemma will undoubtably continue to shape future trends in interface design. 

The last important consideration to discuss when considering what this history may show us is how the purpose of UX/UI design has shifted over the years. Looking at feng shui, its original purpose was to give people a sense of peace with their environment, but UX/UI digital seems to primarily have financial incentives. As this purpose of user-to-surroundings interaction has shifted, it’s important to consider how this is both good and bad.  

On the positive side, financial incentive has encouraged more research and a greater understanding of how design impacts users, which has made UX/UI design more based in science and studies than its historical counterparts. It has also provided economies with an entirely new job market, as UX/UI designers are now required for almost any company that wishes to have a digital presence or even just market themselves. Historically, ergonomics, Taylorism, and other efficiency optimization tactics may not have been particularly useful or largely popular, but UX/UI design has been able to succeed due to its competitive advantage. 

On the other hand, however, financial compensation can lead to unethical practices. Many companies, especially social media platforms, use UX/UI design tactics to encourage addiction rather than prioritizing a positive user experience. 
​

Conclusions  ​

UX/UI design has been uniquely important to the internet and its users, as it is not just quintessential to a good user experience but also is mostly invisible. Looking at its history allows us to understand the context and foundation of UX/UI design, and it may be able to help designers in the future create better design.  ​

While digital trends may constantly be evolving, at their core, users will remain the same, and just as humans were to be the center of design approach centuries ago, they still are today. As society interacts more and more with devices and their interfaces, it's increasingly important to give them an enjoyable experience, and it will be interesting to see how the digital competition for user attention will continue to shape UX/UI trends. 
​

By Grace Whitfield

Grace is a graphic designer and multimedia artist. She is enthusiastic about up-and-coming art technologies and emerging creative fields, like immersive installation art, UX/UI design, and virtual and augmented reality.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-whitfield5/  ​