Racheet

I hesitate to put this in an answer because it's already in your title, but what's wrong with "insurmountable"?

In what way is discovering you have a daughter a loss? That framing isn't the only one you could use to describe the situation. I agree strongly with @BenMillwood

@DanDan true, but this code at least lets you drink the coffee you've just refilled. They're incompatible branches on the cup.

np, good luck!

on the other hand, with sufficiently clever design, you should be able to make that approach work. There's no reason why it wouldn't be possible to make it clear, just that it's a bit more work.

That's going to be an odd visual metaphor. You're relying on the user knowing that these icons are interactive because of the layer below them, but those icons are not interactive because of the lack of another layer. I still think you'd do better to do something to the interactible icons themselves.

Frankly, so long as it works for your users and is coherent with your visual style, I don't mind what techniques you use. In this case, I'd use the drop-shadows to solve your problem, but would switch to using something else if it breaks the coherence of the design.

I think you're probably right, but I know that there's a lot of debate about what does and doesn't constitute a "flat" UI, but I still think using allusions to depth (like drop-shadows to imply layering) aren't inherently a flat-design technique, even if it's sometimes ok to use them in flat design.

that link shows that the guidelines are ok with raised buttons (even if they are skeumorphic / "chrome")

google.com/design/spec/components/…

but the little arrow icon I had in my answer isn't "chrome", since it's a flat-design technique, not a skeumorphic design technique

The shadows of the raised buttons are chrome. They're definitely skeumorphic, but the android guidelines you linked actually used them as a recommendation, so they're ok for you to use

ahh right, I understood "chrome" to mean adding skumorphic elements to emphasize affordances. So adding shadows to give the illusion of depth would count, but adding a flat icon wouldn't. I don't think there's anything in flat design or those guidelines which prevent you using chrome by your definition. Flat design isn't "anti-affordance" design, it's just "anti depth/skeumorphism" design.

I'm a little confused. That page doesn't use the word "chrome" anywhere, and does actually advocate using shadows to make buttons stand out in busy layouts. (see section "raised buttons"). Also, I understood your question to be about marking icons as actionable, not buttons. Was I wrong?

I wouldn't use button chrome. That would violate the guidelines because it's skeumorphic. Instead I'd use something that wasn't a reference to a real world material.

@RobertHarvey Certainly working through his books was the place where I learned that.

@JimmyHoffa He may be a dick, but I've definitely gotten a lot out of working with his material, so he is at worst a useful dick.

It's his first ever question. He doesn't know that. Can you give me some advice on how to improve this question? I've just intentionally broadened it, because it was previously both too specific and also read like a "what should my next project be" question when glanced at.