Material Design is one of the worst things that ever happened to the design of websites, not only Google's but everyone's, since now so many are trying to copy it. I have no idea why anyone would want to see it anywhere.
I actually quite liked the initial implementation that Google published in their original set of guidelines. The issue, I think, was that nobody, including Google, implemented it that way so we ended up with a bunch of substandard interpretations of how "material design" was supposed to look like instead of the real thing.
Yeah, it hurts my eyes every time I see it; can't even force myself to use Android anymore. It's like taking various design styles, putting them into a blender, adding bleacher, and serving it with white gloves in dust-free environment. Totally sterile, without a soul. I guess that's the way a large algorithmic company operates, leaking to everything they do, including domains they have no clue about, like aesthetics.
I think it's more about having guidelines for how things should behave and having a visual framework. It is true that many try to copy it and interpret it wrongly, which creates hideous sites. However, I think Google's purpose here was to create an extension of typography rules, grids and layouts rather than having everyone look the same. Some companies managed to use material design quite successfully and still reflect their brands (and not look 'the same').
Yes I can’t tolerate Material Design anymore, especially on iOS it is so frustrating. Too bad there’s no good alternatives to Google Maps because it’s the only Material app on my iPhone.
Beside this, the loading indicator in material design gives me ... anxiety. its animation is so uneven ... (like the windows 10 indicator which is even worse. i can’t believe this kind of irregular animations have been so widely accepted)
i always thought that it looked a bit childish, was not innovative, was not fully developed as a vision and was not particularly well-explained. it was like, from its very announcement, they were trying to imitate Apple, but not doing it very well.
and i can't help but wonder if these are the reasons why the new GMail UI doesn't work well for this article's reviewer: the GMail app team doesn't really have a clear design inspiration to work from either.
i never liked "Material Design" as a name either. they might as well have called it "stuff design" because, you know, it's designed to look like "stuff."
