Windows 2000 was peak Windows UI. Yeah, it wasn't visually exciting, but it was the peak of functional and discoverable UI. Of course, the Windows 10/11 UI isn't visually exciting either, and in many cases it's more boring looking, and definitely less functional. I would pay money to go back to the Windows 2000 UI, but I guess Microsoft isn't sophisticated enough to do that any more. The current Windows UI is less customizable than Windows 2. Yes, you heard me right. Windows 2.1 was more customizable than Windows 11.
I'm guessing that's just Microsoft conditioning people to accept that Microsoft owns their computer. Same with their "we'll reboot your computer/make changes/revert your preferences whenever we feel like it" philosophy. Personalization leads to a sense of ownership and control that could undermine the feeling of learned helplessness they're hoping we'll fall into.
What I don't understand is why those are treated as the only two choices?
Just adding some shadows, dividers, 3D buttons and real scroll bars again would go a long way to making things more usable without going full on into skeuomorphism to represent elements of the physical world.
A good example of the wrong direction was macOS in the switch to Tahoe. Buttons in modal dialog boxes became flat instead of 3D. They no longer look like buttons, they just look like a web-UI card with a gray background. There is no visual indicator at all that it is a clickable button.
Why? Legitimately, I want to hear from the designer(s) that made that decision and what their reasoning was.
Even Apple’s initial move to a flat UI in iOS 7 suffered from this. It took a long time to get refined to the point of not feeling like a major step backward. I still preferred the look of iOS 6 to anything that came afterwards. The skeuomorphic designs were warm, inviting, and fun. They served as a nice juxtaposition to the rather austere hardware.
We could be using random hieroglyphs to the same ends, but people seem to always make their own (barring a few exceptions, like the hamburger menu). It's probably a better idea to use something with some grounding in reality rather than make your own from nothing, since doing that is hard, even for actual designers.
It also took a long time to standardize on the hamburger menu. Many also tried to use an ellipsis for a long time. Some still do. Sometimes those dots are vertical… is that a thin hamburger or a vertical ellipsis? I heard one person trying to make the term “tots” happen for this style of menu… tatter tots to go with the hamburger.
Contrast that to a “gear” menu for settings. They see a cog or a gear and everyone knows what that is without training, even if they aren’t a mechanic.
Do you need to know the meaning of the latin words manus (hand) and facere (to make) to understand the English words manual (by hand), factory (place which makes things) and manufacture (to assemble)? Do we need new words now that Latin comprehension is dwindling? Not really.
Language works by metaphor, even if the thing you're alluding to doesn't exist anymore.
Of course if you display for example, a spin dial like old telephones that has a particularly quirky way to use, them this doesn't apply.
Every designer nowadays insists on deviating.