Why did UI’s turn from practical to form over function?

E.g. Office 2003 vs Microsoft 365

Office 2003

It’s easy to remember where everything is with a toolbar and menu bar, which allows access to any option in one click and hold move.

Microsoft 365

Seriously? Big ribbon and massive padding wasting space, as well as the ribbon being clunky to use.

Why did this happen?

    • @[email protected]English
      38•3 months ago

      Change for the sake of change is so dumb. I’m tired of pointless UI changes every so many years because some middle manager and their designers need to wow some dumb exec to get a promotion and they do so just by rearranging all the existing functionality because the product itself is already a complete solution that doesn’t actually need a new version. Sadly, this mentality even creeps into FOSS spaces. Canonical and Ubuntu wanting to reinvent the wheel with Unity, Mir, Snap, etc. GNOME radically changing their UI all the time.

      • @[email protected]English
        8•3 months ago

        Complete side note, I saw your pfp and checked your profile to confirm my suspicions. Thank you for your work on OpenRGB! It’s been a great tool for managing the LEDs on my computer.

      • @[email protected]English
        6•3 months ago

        Gnome does not radically change their design all the time.

        The last time they did that was Gnome 3, which came out 13 years ago, and how it was going to work was showcased 16 years ago.

        And you may think it was change for the sake of change, but I’d disagree. The workflow is amazing. Using anything else just feels clunky to me now.

        The changes made in Gnome were based on UX usability studies, not just changing shit for the sake of changing it.

        You’re mistaking your dislike of Gnome not operating like a traditional windows-like UX for it being objectively bad.

        I’m of the opinion that Microsoft didn’t actually invent the perfect UX in the early 90s, and we therefore should not be bound to those UX ideas.

    • SendPicsofSandwichesEnglish
      14•3 months ago

      This is so true of so many companies nowadays. The fact of the matter is that the big leaps in profit/efficiency/effectivness have basically all happened in most of these industries and so often people are pressed to make these sweeping changes because there isn’t any real way to improve on a system like this.