[peebeebee]

Most of our software is bland because it is about practicality and functionality. A UI should do a lot more things than to be expressive. Being expressive is very low on the list. Reliability, accessibility and recognisability are very high on that list. Expressiveness also tends to fight accessibility and recognisability.

This also goes for other design fields. As a (stupid) example: I can design all kinds of weird wonderful stairs in public places, that will give the place some charm. But the best one will be with a more boring ramp of with about 5degrees of incline, because that's the wheelchair-accessible one.

[nicbou]

Style is not the only form of expression. Adapting a tool to your workflow is also a form of expression. I'm surprised that with all of their resources, tech companies still build software that completely ignore relatively common use cases like hiking.

[dsign]

There are plenty of apps with maps for hiking. Hell, I use QGis when I go in long-paddle boarding expeditions (a general purpose GIS environment). I'm fine with letting the big monopolies handle the 90% case of going from A to B as quickly and efficiently as possible. And I'm very, very grateful for the other 10% which is enjoyable and in the realm of citizen agency.