This looks like some visual artist was given a task to design the UI. Visually interesting but completely disregards UI research and usability standards.
> By making the Send button larger and more prominent, participants were able to spot the button four times faster
Or, you know, by putting a circle around it, it looked more like a button than a bare icon. I bet you'd get even better results by putting a bit of drop-shadow on buttons too!
> Expressive Design: Google's UX Research
> Eye tracking
So this is all Google's UI research: "Eye tracking".
Are the people at Google really handicapated ?
sigh gray on gray, no/small scrollbars, flat UI - one cannot tell what is a button and what is a label, microphone icon in an SMS app, etc. sigh