[kijin]

We had skeuomorphism for a few years. Then everyone decided to go flat and abstract. I don't think the obsession with flatness will last more than a few years, though. Sooner or later, something else will come up and we'll all rush to adopt it, users be damned.

Developers tend to have an analytical mindset, and people with analytical mindsets tend to overgeneralize. We find something that works for us in some cases, decide that it's the One True Way (tm), and try to apply the same principle to everything. We defend our choices religiously, blindly pursuing the ideal of purity. If any user dares to admit that they don't understand the reasoning behind our elegant designs, we blame them, not ourselves. PEBCAK, after all.

Then a new trend comes along, and we repeat the cycle all over again.

In fact, the problem does usually exist between the chair and keyboard. Except it's not always the user's keyboard and the user's chair. Sometimes it's between our keyboards and our chairs.