It’s as confusing as those adware and spyware ridden one-purpose tools from no-name Chinese developers.

That’s very funny, of course. But if adaptive design and all that crap are so hot today, could they please limit that to touchscreen-first devices? No sane person would actually write a work document or code on a touchscreen if there’s a keyboard.

Yet do they use ancient copies of the software that broadly still performs the tasks people need of them? No.

This just means that functionality and interoperability criteria are more important than usability. They are - you can’t just exchange docs with a person using a modern office suite, while you are using WordPerfect 8 for Linux.

This is the opposite of confirming your argument about UI\UX, because this means that UI\UX are order of magnitude less important in making the decision.

And it’s obvious, I swear, some people haven’t been taught that arguments are not intended to support their group or hierarchy, you can’t do that with cheating in arguments anyway. They are intended to find out truth, make both participants richer than before.

Do they theme their system to look like the oh-so-superior Win98? No.

That’s simply because they “theme their system” to look as they wish and they don’t have to stop with Win98 or Win2K.

But in a “one size to fit all” situation those are still obviously superior.

Ergonomics is not a matter of opinions, there’s plenty of research since the fscking world war two. Different controls should have different colors, shapes and textures. It’s a scientifically proven statement. Proven with human error stats and time to do a task stats.

Padding controls and indicators with space can be a good thing, but no modern designer is doing it right as far as I’m concerned. Because it’s not about making panels half the screen, it’s about different groups of controls being clearly separated by that space and padded for focus, and space being used proportionally to importance.

They’ve all heard something of it, but haven’t learned the actual thing.

Older UIs were usually (often, but not always) made with respect to ergonomics.

thank god modern UIs aren’t inconsistent, cramped and cluttered like this

Our ideas of all three things seem to be diametrically opposite. For me older UIs seem ordered, compact and correctly accented. In general, it’s not always true - say, I like the appearance of old KDE (2-3), but not sure if I’d use it daily, for example (neither I would modern KDE).

Makes me think of people who want to cut down all trees along streets and replace all grass with concrete. So that all would be empty and similar and “in order”.

By the way! I can see how this (color blocking) may resonate with one’s ADHD and the stereotype that many designers have it.

But if any such a designer is reading this, I want them to understand that using their … creations with ADHD is harder, not easier, than using normal, traditional UIs.

For the designer this may be a distracting and irritating contrast, because they have no use for information conveyed by it. For the user it’s the opposite, they are distracted and irritated because of not being able to quickly find what they need.

Globalization ruined it.

Not like in politics (though similar), but in the sense that instead of a space of generally sane people where you don’t have to follow any conventions of fashion or social expectations of idiots, like a park where people sit in grass and eat sandwiches, it has turned into something like a mall built in place of that park, with guards, ads, bullshit and shopping apes.

There definitely was trash. You just didn’t have to see it. You’d not go to a central recommendations system, like in social nets or search engines. You’d go to web directories and your friends. Like for many things you still do.

Now there’s the fake social pressure of being on corporate platforms. Why fake? Because you still really need and talk to the same amount people you would back then, even fewer.

That fake social pressure was their killer invention. Human psychology is unprepared for critically evaluating the emotions from being able to scroll through half the world of other people right now. They don’t generally use that seemingly easy ability to reach anyone anywhere, while when it was a bit harder, they would, but the fake feeling of having it is very strong.

It’s a mouse trap.