I would say that it's more important to be competent in determining how design is going to be understood and used by users in their individual workflows. Few are more competent to judge that than the users themselves.
I'm pretty sure most folks have seen and experienced the negative impacts of designers changing things for the sake of change (or to justify their paychecks).
There is a massive amount of bad design out there — made by designers. There is a large amount of bad software implementations. By programmers. And awful chairs, food, and ...
"Why they added a camera bump? Sticking out of display lid. A thing nobody ask for".
"Why the made the base flat. But removed the rounded palm rest? Adding a sharp corner."
"Why the removed the dent which allowed to open the display lid, which didn't protruded out of the device?"
PS: I'm frustrated about the new ThinkPads with a camera bump sticking out of the display. Everybody hates camera bumps. The display lid is broad and provides much space for adding multiple cameras, microphones and sensors of all kind. I know...this topic is about software UI. The change for the sake of the change itself is not beneficial.
How many designer friends do you have? Do you know what they do daily? We know your preconception that regardless of company size and product they are just counting beans.
Can you please tell me your thoughts on how it is "hard to defend"?
My thoughts: How can designers criticize the use of Comic Sans? If users use it where it's connotations (childlike, casual) are appropriate, such as birthday parties, and love it, who are designers to comment on it? I find this indefensible, as if design sensibilities have a foundation very much like mathematics or physics and there is a clearly Universal litmus test of good design and bad design. There isn't. In fact, arbitrary mores of fashion such as "Comic Sans is uncool" are the very tell that design has foundations as strong as a piece of string in the wind. The disdain for Comic Sans reeks of elitism, where designers gatekeep "good taste" based on arbitrary conventions.
However, I do agree that making fun of people picking the wrong font is a bit elitist. At least Comic Sans is easy to read, so one could do worse.
Of course comic sans specifically has turned into a bit of a meme so now you'll see all sorts of people complaining about it getting used anywhere, which is a lot sillier, but still not elitist I don't think.
> ...good design and bad design. There isn't.
It's called good taste. It's not science of course, good design is organic, it evolves, it converges. See carcinisation.
> The disdain for Comic Sans reeks of elitism, where designers gatekeep "good taste" based on arbitrary conventions.
Kinda true, get over it. Trust the people with good taste and if you want to do great, pay them to do this work for you.
But if you have an uncanny love affair with Comic Sans, no force in the Universe can stop you, have fun with it, you are free to ignore everybody.
But there are plenty more. Why settle on the worst one?
But yes, comic book lettering is done a specific way for a reason.
Aesthetics are essentially worthless for a user interface and should always be a secondary concern. But clearly designers have elevated aesthetics over usability, hence the numerous and constant redesigns of everything.
If you care about usability you know that a redesign necessarily comes at a great cost, since you are breaking many of the mental connections of your users. It is only justifiable if there is some serious gain by doing that.
That is one of my random thoughts: Windows could have kept the Windows 95 look and been perfectly usable. Sure there might have been a need for certain UI tweaks, but for most office/home use there was no reason to change it.
The whole "let's make it friendly" is annoying. If it's a tool make it practical. If you need to write a manual because of that, then please, go right a head and do that.