There’s a flip side to this. If you change the UI for no reason, people get upset. For example, the latest iOS update flipped the speaker and mute buttons during a call. Why? No improvement was made, it’s just frustrating.
On the flip side, who do get to be promoted.
This appears to be not true for the OS (but only for Apps / websites). I'd say, for personal devices, folks expect a shiny new UI every OS update. For ex: iOS and Android are always in contention for who changes UI the most, from one version to another.
Besides, styling changes and form changes are not the same.
A 99% of folks could not care less, when they're not downright annoyed by the UI changes. There has been major reactions on UI changes (from Office, Gmail Windows, Gnome, iOS and macOS to Facebook). There have been in comparison crickets about the UI not "updating fast enough", and those are mostly from designer types (like the stupid "skeuomorphic" hoopla a decade ago).
A small minority of designers and superficial people is the one making any noise about UI needing to be updated every time.
As long as they aren’t broken or removing large amounts of useful functionality. The only redesign I’ve ever disliked is the Reddit one, and only because it still doesn’t work properly.
It is amazing how they aren't able to sort it out despite all the engineering hours spent on it.
Remove all the objectively (from the perspective of a non-oblivious user) stupid stuff that 10 and 11 added including half-baked UIs, extra clicks, inconsistencies, random forced changes, 'AI', etc.
How many of us have encountered 'Legacy' systems that get a bad wrap but are actually responsible for everything?
Eventually Legacy will have a positive connotation. So let's get to that now and resume improving the internals unless there's actually something else to do.
And for those who bring up being afraid of change I propose Windows Random Change edition for you.
You’ll be happy to hear there’s an easier way of saying this! It’s “subjectively”
If you need a shorthand you could also go with “IMO”.
Some people don't believe the earth is round either, but the rest of us don't consider it a "subjective" "IMO" fact.