[sph]

Must be a Gen Z meme because it was traumatic for those that lived it. It reminds me of Windows Vista and, my god, the first few years of KDE 4 - it has taken me until last year to try KDE again (and finally it has shed it’s silly hard contrast black transparency phase)

Gen Z like it because of nostalgia, not because of quality or because it actually looks any good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plasma_Workspaces.png - ugh.

[bigyabai]

I have to agree. Windows Aero is a visual mess, especially on Vista, and many of the comparable UXes of the time were not much better. Apple's Aqua UI was the best of the bunch, and it still looked like a child's toy.

It was especially confusing at the time because Windows XP was so straightforward and correct. Flat, contrast-heavy UI elements that overlap without interacting when they aren't supposed to. Drop shadows used for good instead of evil. Skeumorphic design elements that are intuitive, not desperate and corny. The cutting edge in PC usability is arguably still technology designed in 2003.

[int_19h]

Aero was kind of a mess in Vista, but improved substantially in 7 (and a lot of that was due to more frosted glass look / less transparency). I would still rate 7 as the best balance of usability and eye candy that Windows has ever had, and I've used all of them heavily starting with Win 3.1.