My biggest issue personally with the new gmail design is that all the current theme options are "two tone". By this I mean that with the old themes, you could have 1 color for the background in the left pane, another for the menu area of the current folder, and possibly another for the background in the email thread/ composition region.
For the new gmail look, theres just "background color" and "foreground color". Now I may just be a simple sentient hominid computer user, but most human beings that are neither horse nor hammerhead shark have this wonderful thing called depth perception (and color perception) which allows for more nuance in our perception than just "front bit" and "back thingy", and moreover our brain does a lot of heuristics when giving us our vision, one of which is using contrast in two neighboring objects to detect that they are separated (by those regions called borders).
Phrased a bit more directly, I think the biggest problem with the new gmail / reader ui's is not aesthetics. Its not UI standard practice, its not this new found homogeneity or "sparseness", though these all tie into the underlying problem. Rather its that the human brain is optimized for using contrast in depth or color or shade as a core hinting tool in perception. If they're going to stick to general new style, they need to provide more dimensions in how different ui elements can be themed.
The closest metaphorical analogue I can think of would be that the current ui approach would be like having the classic cartoon "Samurai Jack" (which has a very nice style that is notable for being one of the few cartoons that lack black outlines at all) being colored with only two very close shades of gray & a smattering of black and white in a few small places. Sure you can still see everything, but your brain has to work harder to actually keep track of it all.
For the new gmail look, theres just "background color" and "foreground color". Now I may just be a simple sentient hominid computer user, but most human beings that are neither horse nor hammerhead shark have this wonderful thing called depth perception (and color perception) which allows for more nuance in our perception than just "front bit" and "back thingy", and moreover our brain does a lot of heuristics when giving us our vision, one of which is using contrast in two neighboring objects to detect that they are separated (by those regions called borders).
Phrased a bit more directly, I think the biggest problem with the new gmail / reader ui's is not aesthetics. Its not UI standard practice, its not this new found homogeneity or "sparseness", though these all tie into the underlying problem. Rather its that the human brain is optimized for using contrast in depth or color or shade as a core hinting tool in perception. If they're going to stick to general new style, they need to provide more dimensions in how different ui elements can be themed.
The closest metaphorical analogue I can think of would be that the current ui approach would be like having the classic cartoon "Samurai Jack" (which has a very nice style that is notable for being one of the few cartoons that lack black outlines at all) being colored with only two very close shades of gray & a smattering of black and white in a few small places. Sure you can still see everything, but your brain has to work harder to actually keep track of it all.