MATERIAL 3 EXPRESSIVE: BUILDING ON THE FAILURES OF FLAT DESIGN

Summary from the TLDR Design newsletter

Google's Material 3 Expressive update addresses long-documented usability problems with flat design, where oversimplified interfaces stripped away visual signifiers that help users identify clickable elements and understand page structure. Research spanning over a decade, including Google's own 18,000-participant study, has found that flat designs increase task completion, cause more scanning effort, and particularly disadvantage older users. The new guidelines restore the strategic use of containment, color contrast, and shading as functional cues that reduce key-action discovery time by four times and nearly eliminate performance gaps between age groups.