[karaterobot]

> Then there’s the aesthetic problem. When products are developed for the elderly, they tend to be ugly and an unwanted signal of fragility.

Just an observation: My main takeaway from The Design of Everyday Things was that design should make it obvious what the thing is for, and how to use it. Affordance is the big keyword. I think these mobility tools succeed in that respect. Maybe his point here is that an ugly cane makes it look like it's a tool for dying slowly, but a more likely explanation is that it is what he's saying on the surface: that aesthetics matter too. I wonder whether this is a change of heart, of just a change of emphasis for this particular article.

[layer8]

Making it obvious how to use it and making it look pretty are often in conflict. That doesn’t mean you can’t have both, but it’s generally hard work. The people who are nowadays being hired to design UIs tend to prioritize the latter over the former, whereas good usability requires the former but not the latter.

[karaterobot]

I've worked as a designer for a couple decades. There's a lot of bad UI out there, but it's only bad because making complex apps usable is really, really hard. And, in general, web UX and usability has come a long way in a short time. For example, small companies didn't usability test at all when I started out, unless they were way in front of the trend. Nowadays they do, unless they are way behind the trend.

I have also not observed a change that emphasizes form over function. If anything it's been the opposite, because today's product-driven world knows that websites which are easy to use make more money.

(There is this question of whether the design benefits the users, or if it is only to serve the company's bottom line, even at the expense of user happiness. These incentives lead to so-called dark patterns, but I don't call that behavior "bad" in the sense of execution, even though it is "bad" in the sense of morality.)

There's also been a ton of standardization in UI patterns, which lowers the floor on just how awful a UI can really be. Those had to be invented, and now they're relatively stable. We have good patterns now for how to make a product listing, or a detail page, or a checkout process, or an accessible form. And they are widely known. In many cases they've just been internalized by younger designers before they even start. There aren't many Kai's Power Tools style UIs out there anymore.

In general, I've observed web design getting better and better. It's easy to cherry pick counterexamples, but I would not go back to the design of the average early 00s website.

[layer8]

> websites which are easy to use make more money.

That’s not necessarily true. It’s why we have dark patterns.

> In general, I've observed web design getting better and better. It's easy to cherry pick counterexamples, but I would not go back to the design of the average early 00s website.

My point of reference is good native desktop apps that adhere to the platform conventions. Web apps typically don’t come close in usability.

[neuralRiot]

> Making it obvious how to use it and making it look pretty are often in conflict.

Probably because modern design took the “less is more” mantra as its root value and thus became lazy. Less is not more, it’s easier to make it look good, it’s like throwing away all your furniture and painting everything white and calling that interior design.