disclaimer: Im not a designer or ux person, more a general technologist and programmer. however most of my friends are designers and I work on software so im exposed to it a lot. I read “the design of everyday things” years ago and that’s the extent of my qualifications.

with that said, im quite familiar with design trends and personally prefer more functional designs than those optimized for aesthetics. windows 95 was quite intuitive because it had to be. current operating systems, starting with windows 8, went in the opposite direction and optimized for clean aesthetics- lots of white space and flattening everything. todays ui’s are still rooted in this foundation with a heavy reliance on iconography.

I want less cognitive load, not more. I think design is cool and I like all of it but if I was to pick between the modern flat designs and the retro beveled buttons, well, im going back.