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AMA: I'm Matias Duarte, a VP of Design at Google!

8 years ago from Matias Duarte, VP Design, Google

  • Marko PrljicMarko Prljic, 8 years ago

    Hi Matias, thanks for coming here :)

    While I was reading about Material design I came across some contradictory statements. I got a reply from Google Design, not sure, maybe it was even you who replied but I'm somehow not !00% on this answer yet. I don't understand why material never bends or folds? Am I missing something?

    There are several explanations of the metaphor:

    "the flexibility of the material " " the rules of physics"

    and so on...

    http://markoprljic.tumblr.com/post/112305446667

    Thanks! Marko.

    0 points
    • Joel ChristensenJoel Christensen, 8 years ago

      possibly because of the limited depth? folding anything larger than a floating action button would require it to go higher than the maximum elevation (the surface of the display).

      2 points
      • Marko PrljicMarko Prljic, 8 years ago

        Hmmm, interesting, let me crunch that thought for a moment :) Thanks!

        0 points
      • Brian Nelson, 8 years ago (edited 8 years ago )

        Pretty sure that this is exactly right. Thought I saw this in the MD spec at one point, but I think it may have been removed for conciseness.

        Here are two other ways that you can think of this distinction:

        1: Elements (folded or unfolded) always stay in their original state.

        2: Interactive elements in particular can never fold (due to the aforementioned lack of depth in the environment).

        The folding interaction and animation as used by Flipboard and Facebook Paper look pretty unnatural, as they assume a disproportionately large level of depth (~3") on relatively thin devices (less than 0.5").

        0 points