I'm going to hell anyway, so why not?

In all seriousness (no, I am definitely going to hell, I meant the sinning part) neumorphism isn't that bad. In fact, I like it quite a lot and have been slowly making my site more necromorphic - err, neumorphic. To defend myself, I'll say why I think neumorphism is terrible and why that didn't stop me from using it.

Full disclosure, I am not a UI/UX specialist or web designer - this is just my hobbyist opinion.

What is neumorphism?

Neumorphism is a design trend which exists between skeumorphism and flat design. Skeumorphism means using real-world representations of objects in a design/interface. For example, if you had an old iPhone, you can probably picture the home screen and its icons. The Voice Memos app shows a three-dimensional, metallic studio microphone. The Settings app looks like a window into the internal gears of the phone. The calculator app has the glossy buttons of one of those old devices your math teacher would pull out when you forgot to bring your calculator for a test. In contrast, flat design simplifies real world objects as much as possible and is more minimalist.

Neumorphism is like flat design, but augmented with the use of shadows. Hard, contrasting borders are replaced with soft shadows which create the illusion that elements pop out of the page. This illusion is achieved by giving components the same color as their background, and applying two box shadows to a component - one that is slightly lighter, and one that is slightly darker. The light shadows are where edges face the pseudo light source, and dark shadows are surfaces that face away from the light. This technique is fairly cheap to apply, since it just relies on clever usage of box shadows.

Why it sucks

Neumorphism looks great, but it compromises on accessibility. While simple borders aren't the most aesthetically pleasing thing, they are essential for maintaining contrast in an interface. Without contrast, elements blend together and it is difficult to understand where things begin and end. This is especially true for users who are visually impaired. Soft shadows are insufficient in establishing boundaries for objects. This becomes a major problem wben shadows are used for functional aspects of an interface.

For example, many designs attempt to use soft shadows to signify the state of a button. A regular box shadow, making the button appear to jump out of the page, could signal that the button is inactive, while an inset box shadow, making the button appear embossed in the page, could signal that the button is pressed and active. For visually impaired users who may not be able to see the shadow, the button does not appear to change at all - and this is where neumorphism is dangerous. In the hands of someone who doesn't care about accessibility, very terrible designs will emerge.

However, this doesn't that mean neumorphism is dead in the water. I see neumorphism as flat design without the training wheels - it is much easier to make mistakes, you just have to do a bit of thinking and planning to avoid them. My heuristic is to pretend that the shadows aren't there - does the interface still make sense? If not, you need to change something. A button that uses the above technique could combine shadows with a colored background and icon which communicate state. You can also have a border on an element as well as a box shadow, so that if the user cannot see the shadow there is a border as a fallback for contrast.

Why I love it anyway

Despite all of its flaws, neumorphism is still one of my favorite design trends. It's the perfect mix of beauty and ugliness. A neumorphic interface with its bumps and curves is sexy, but also evokes the feeling of looking at a raised skin rash. Like many retro designs, it has a little bit of nastiness that gives it edge and intrigue. I also think that it encapsulates the desire for an interface to feel like part of a device, like it has been grafted into the screen, rather than sitting behind a piece of glass. We all want to feel like an interface is real, and not some arrangement of pixels masquerading as something that we can touch. I feel like neumorphism delivers better in this aspect than any other trend that I have seen, and that is why I have chosen to implement it here. Skeumorphism is too clunky for me, and even a perfectly executed flat design makes me yawn, but neumorphism takes the best (and worst) of both worlds to create a face only a programmer with vague knowledge of design could love.