Hacker News Reader

Agreed. I suspect the shift in design occurred when the base assumption moved from "most users have never used a computer before" to "most users are familiar with computers".

IMO Windows Interface Guidelines from 1995 are still relevant today: https://ics.uci.edu/~kobsa/courses/ICS104/course-notes/Micro...

View on HN

And since the new generation of users is growing up with mobile touch devices, we're coming back full circle to "most users never used a computer before".

To be honest, I still reference my paper copy of the Windows 1995 Interface Guidelines from time to time, when people propose new features for Krita. They are not always useful, but at least they don't change all the time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com