Win95 had very strict and consistent UI style. Office2k and Win2k were peak of this consistency. After that came WinXP and mismatch of inconsistent UI styles.
I've had to teach people to use PCs many times, it used to be so much easier for this reason. You'd teach someone that "this icon mean THIS" and that would be that, but today that is impossible because there are five different graphics/ideas for each thing (plus of course iconography used to use analogies from real-life, like a pen for Word, bin for throwing stuff away, folders, etc).
Windows 10 never really reached self-consistency in six years, and it seems like Microsoft just doesn't care at this point with Windows 11 now just layering more contradictory concepts on the unfinished Windows 10 ones.
Windows 10 never really reached self-consistency in six years, and it seems like Microsoft just doesn't care at this point with Windows 11 now just layering more contradictory concepts on the unfinished Windows 10 ones.