Why DO We Need Material Expressive

How We Got Material Expressive

So Material Expressive is not coming to the Flutter SDK until about fall of 2027 with of course the separation of the Material and Cupertino Widgets into separate packages. I thought it would be helpful, if I describe how we got here with Material Expressive as part of my argument of why we should implement Material Expressive now.

Part of that draws on my Android native app design experience as I was designing Android native apps before we had Material Design. That was known as the Holo era where the design was haphazard with somewhat a StarTrek TNG approach.

It was somewhat fragmented by all the OEM skins.Then Google in 2011 weighed in with the HOLO approach. Along with the Holo graphic theme we got the multi-panel approach and standardize navigation along with a systems bar and an app bar.

Also, along the way we got a first version of the font Roboto. But, behind the scenes was a research project called quantum paper. Its goals were to make design easier for app builders and to give them tools to surpass Apple’s own UX design systems and other UX design systems such as Micrsoft’s evolving flat design.

The theme seems to be this pull of flat design from Apple and the push from Google for a more complete design system in re-applying human psychology. So at first I will in this article track through Apple Flat UX Design and then explain why Material Design came about and why its better.