Reading quotes from the book in the previous post made me think that this nightmare bicycle is the main reason design is so bad right now.

Designers confuse the simplicity of having gears with the minimalism of hiding them entirely and reducing controls to a few buttons.

A few examples:

• Avoiding tables, even when they are the best way to present dimensional data.
• Hiding important elements under menus because multiple controls in a UI are supposedly confusing.
• Prioritizing flat UI over visual structure and hierarchy.
• Designing transparent buttons with no clear indication of action, making them blend into the background.
• Using low-contrast text that sacrifices readability for aesthetics.
• Replacing labels with contextless icons—while a well-designed icon can be effective, it often fails to convey meaning.
• Slowing down interactions with unnecessary animations and transitions in the name of “smoothness.”
• Hiding information in sliders that users don’t even realize exist.
• Auto-hiding UI elements just because it looks “cleaner.”
• Implementing touch-optimized controls on desktop, such as oversized buttons and excessive whitespace.

This all comes from the desire to force certain aesthetics, and unfortunately, web technologies provide too few constraints to prevent this abuse.