> Old versions of Windows seemed to be built in a intuitive way so even someone with no computer experience would have a chance at finding what they were looking for.
I think the goal is very much the same today, but the people first using a computer have probably already experienced Android or iOS. Computers are now for serious business and maybe high-end video games, the rest is done on phones and tablets. The world has gone mobile first so for beginners to pick up Windows, Windows needs to be "mobile-compatible". Icons are flat and abstract, buttons are big without borders, and half your screen being filled with UI is not bad as long as you full screen that important content when it matters.
I don't think the clarity of older operating systems needs to go away per se, but people's expectations have dropped significantly with small touch screen devices and designers love showing off how "clean" their design looks.
Mobile designs are horrible about being intuitive and discoverable, to the point that many apps have tutorials about where you can swipe or double-tap and what it does because there's no reasonable way to discern this from their UI. If that's what we base our desktop UIs on it's no wonder they become less usable.
I completely agree that UX on mobile is terrible, half the controls can only be learned by random chance or brute force. However, kids grow up with mobile devices from a very young age these days, young enough for the terrible UX not to matter as much.
Copying the mobile UI is definitely a bad direction, but it's a very understandable one from a business sense and it's the only explanation I can really think of when it comes to Windows 11's iconography and design.
I really dislike this trend. I switched my KDE theme to windows classic with the memphis icons and it's just a joy to use, even for a while. I like being able to tweak things, and the latest version of windows is even harder to do that.
> but the people first using a computer have probably already experienced Android or iOS.
Rape is also an experience. A negative one.
And Android or iOS are not computers (just like a TV or a washing machine are not computers). They are specialized entertainment devices designed to extract data from the users.
I think the goal is very much the same today, but the people first using a computer have probably already experienced Android or iOS. Computers are now for serious business and maybe high-end video games, the rest is done on phones and tablets. The world has gone mobile first so for beginners to pick up Windows, Windows needs to be "mobile-compatible". Icons are flat and abstract, buttons are big without borders, and half your screen being filled with UI is not bad as long as you full screen that important content when it matters.
I don't think the clarity of older operating systems needs to go away per se, but people's expectations have dropped significantly with small touch screen devices and designers love showing off how "clean" their design looks.