Productivity software, computer maintenance tools, creative software suites, integrated development environments, habit trackers, language learning apps, video games, video streaming libraries, pretty much anything that involves a screen feels bad. It's so odd that every bit of software's UI/UX feels both overly designed/bloated but also simultaneously barren and empty. Software design seems increasingly unable to fulfill its basic functionality. So many of the bits of software that we interact with feel identical but also somehow feel distinctly bad.
I can't articulate how capitalism is to blame but if any of you could help I would appreciate it.
You’d think that there would be some sort of universal visual/technical language we can all agree upon but it seems that there is no real driving aesthetic philosophy for systems we use every day. Aside from getting users to interact with a payment system/outlet all of the software we use has dreadful UI/UX.
Paying for something is very easy. Simple and intuitive (most of the time), it’s usually one to four clicks/taps but actually using a thing is seemingly more difficult. Using a common feature of a product can be somewhere between two to nine clicks/taps. I don’t think everything should be command-line interfaces (CLI) of course, but I will say that CLI at least usually allow users to get what they want.
I know it’s usually answered with “because money”, but how and why are UI/UX so universally bad for pretty much every bit of software we all use? It feels kind like how every car (fuck cars) had the same weird amorphous shape that is both considered “normal” must also universally unappealing.
What happened?
I think mobile user interfaces are half decent. Desktop UIs suck except for video games, which sometimes have pretty slick UIs that are actually navigable (I always think of Overwatch here, but they've made it worse over time).
I think a lot of apps start with a good, well thought out UI, but as you add features on to the core, it becomes harder to fit all the features in one UI under the initial design, and they end up being tacked on in a non-intuitive way. UI design really is "design" in the same way designing the software is design. It requires "systems" and ways of mentally structuring things so users can organize it in their minds. That is difficult to do when you want to keep adding things incrementally. And you don't want to overhaul a UI too frequently, just like you don't overhaul the design of the code too frequently, because it would end up making the UI worse due to having to relearn it constantly. But I'm not a UI designer.
I do know that hamburger menus, invisible gestures instead of buttons (swipe to go back), and UI elements that move around while you're doing stuff (the stupid header and footer in every mobile app now), need to go. You're giving users nausea if everything is constantly sliding around on the screen. And it makes using it way too slow too.