The first is infinitely more confusing to the eye. There's no heirarchy; I don't know where to look. The second is clean while still giving me a sense of where I need to go to accomplish what I'd like to accomplish.
Both pages show the exact same content with relatively small positioning changes. For me, however, the new version is definitely more pleasant to look at.
That being said, Bootstrap is supposed to be a starting point, not the final style. Going flat means less work for us developers when we start styling their components.
I agree with this completely. Before v.3 I was forced to turn to Designmodo's Flat UI just so I could do simple things like changing the color of the navbar without also tackling a million different gradients and effects (granted I'm not a designer or developer).
The low-contrast trend is really being shown here. I don't get why it's so popular. We've got left navigation with grey text on a grey background, no borders, no underlines indicating that they are link. The top bar is purple, with a purple hero board just below it. It's low-contrast city... and I have no idea where my eye should go.
I'm no web designer, just a developer with a casual interest.
Can you explain what this low-contrast thing is all about? Why would anyone think this was a good idea, except perhaps for UI elements that were explicitly disabled.
I can't speak for every designer, and it is possible that the shift is entirely a visual trend based on rebelling from the past trends.
My justification for keeping the interface low contrast is to emphasize content. Keep in mind that getbootstrap.com is designed for web designers and developers—most of whom will be familiar with traditional web design. Menus are in obvious places and don't need to be called out.
Take the alternative to the extreme: if we need color to show us clickable elements should we have flashing underlines? Gifs that move arrows back and forth?
I can certainly see that. Do you count "main body text" as 'content' in your designs?
I can imagine myself working with a web design until I was sick of seeing lorem ipsum. This might lead me to under-value 'content' from the perspective of the reader. You think such a phenomenon happens with web designers?
Or could it be that Apple did some kind of brainwave analysis on rats (or users :-) and determined that low-contrast was better for some purpose, then the design community just cargoculted it?
> I can certainly see that. Do you count "main body text" as 'content' in your designs?
I make an effort to never use placeholder text that doesn't at least closely resemble the real (or intended) content. This might just be me, but I'm pretty sure it's common amongst better designers: building something around fake data is much harder than building something 'real'.
> You think such a phenomenon happens with web designers?
Absolutely.
> brainwave analysis on rats (or users :-)
If Art and HCI are on opposing ends of a spectrum of interface design I've always been a bit closer to art—so my experience with testing ends at formal user interviews and guerrilla-coffee-shop tests. It's not a stretch to imagine the big tech companies doing brainwave analysis (and I'd be thrilled to participate at any level, it's seriously cool stuff).
> design community just cargoculted it?
Like any community, designers react to the trends of their peers, but a competent designer can defend pretty much any decision, which makes it hard to tell the difference between 'doing something familiar but wrong' and 'following trends that are right'.
I think the header and main button could contrast more with the rest of the page, but otherwise think the current landing page is much better. And by "contrast" I don't necessarily mean color-wise.
The old page is pretty gross, IMO. If the current page is like an auditorium so quiet you're straining to hear something then the old page is like an auditorium where everyone is jabbering away. On the old design I see contrast in weight, size, alignment, and color, and that's just above the fold.
Personally, I'm glad they're not making web pages look like tombstones out of the box with that center-justified layout. I think the left-aligned new redesign is much sleeker.
http://getbootstrap.com/ http://getbootstrap.com/2.3.2/
The first is infinitely more confusing to the eye. There's no heirarchy; I don't know where to look. The second is clean while still giving me a sense of where I need to go to accomplish what I'd like to accomplish.