> armchair experts were laughing at us old people for reminiscing about the eye candy of OS X ...they told us... everything needs to be flat. ... You're not supposed to know the difference between text and buttons...
its pretty clear, i think, most of this stuff, including from the designers (apple) themselves are just post-hoc justifications in the end...
It didn't have to be - there was a time they spent money and time on watching people use stuff and figured out how to improve them. Nowadays that sort of scientific process is only applied to increasing engagement and addiction on social media.
> a time they spent money and time on watching people use stuff and figured out how to improve
yes, definitely.
i'm reminded of parc with smalltalk and the early lisa/mac design prototypes being based on actually learning how people think about problem solving and its relations to ui/ux (with the goal of improving usability, discovery and reducing cognitive load etc)
