I think new UI designers might mistakenly think that they are in the fashion industry, when actually they are in the ergonomics engineering industry, or should be.

I was so frustrated 1995-2005 that the designers I worked with had a print mindset. Now I'm frustrated that designers are no good at all.

It's no help at all that people expect Apple to be fashionable, like if you read a review of an "operating system" in Arstechnica you'd think it's all about little details on the scrollbar, not about filesystems and microkernels and namespaces and stuff.

I don't like it either, but they are in the fashion industry.

Why did the label on my Fig Newtons get redesigned? It's not because it lacked in usability. It's because the company knows that customers respond to visual updates. If something looks the same year after year, lots of people will see it as old and tired. A redesign makes it feel modern and fresh. At least to enough people that it matters.

I had the same experience on a recent trip to The UPS Store. The color scheme was all different from the previous time I shipped a package. I commented to the clerk that they'd redecorated. He said they do it pretty often.

Software has a visual aspect to it, and the same forces are in effect. Part of a UI designer's job is to be on that treadmill. That's probably not what the job should be, but the people who pay their salary want it to be.

The amount of times I absolutely cringe from super lux UI which clearly a lot of time and energy went into prettifying at the absolute expense of usability and affordances. I love Apple TV but flip to any screen with multiple buttons and not being able to tell which button is selected. Or the Russian Roulette of Youtube trying to select any of the overlayed buttons on the actual video frame. I would 1000% trade shiny for more usablility in 99% of apps.

There is both ux and and graphic design and they both have their place. Saddly far too often one wins out over another instead of finding balance.