Back when users picked the UI colors for the apps instead of the apps picking for the users.
No, they don't. It's my system, and the look should be what I want it to be, period. What designers actually need to do is learn to respect their users, even when they disagree with the user's choices.
Some people like having ridiculously long fake nails that make it difficult to do their jobs (i'm thinking some checkout clerks I've seen who can't properly push any of the keys on their terminal), but it's their choice.
But if the user sets the system to hot dog stand, the apps should be hot dog stand. If the user wants the system text font to be wingdings, they're in for a nasty time, but that doesn't mean an app should force a different font
After all, the developer always knows best and all users are helpless children who need to be forced to conform and comply. Who cares what the user thinks or wants so long as we keep that sweet, sweet engagement.
It's not that users are helpless, but that they just don't want to spend their time dealing with stuff they don't want to. Users like it when things "just work."
But that doesn't explain taking away options. Users who don't want their time with this stuff would probably not use the customization options in the first place.
Also, the term "deliver value" has been badly tainted after too many companies have used it as an euphemism for "extracting value".
It's the same non-logic that advertisers use: Ads are both a service for the viewer, informing them of amazing opportunities, but also somehow the viewers must be forced into consuming that service.
I'm deeply skeptical of situations where people have to be forced into something "for their own good".
What you're advocating is protecting the user from themselves, which is antithetic to the entire ethos of the hacker.
Yes, you as a developer shouldn't fuck up the user's setup. But if the user fucks it up on their own? Then that's on them. Don't limit the power users because you want to infantilize the casual users.
I wasn't aware engagement maximisation is the reason we don't get customization options anymore, but it makes perfect sense.
No one used to care about this because it was at the discretion of the user whether they want to keep using the app or not. Whereas today, it's the company objective to keep the user in the app as much as possible.
[0] https://community.spotify.com/t5/Community-Blog/Introducing-...
If your content is so poor that a change of colors can make people leave, then perhaps your content is not worth having.
See Win 95 resolution change workflow.
This was 20 years ago. A lot of knowledge was lost since then.
What is actually happening is designers are forcing non-native controls, in part because web technologies have infested every corner of software development these days. Unsurprisingly, those non-native widgets break in a plethora of ways when the system diverges even marginally from the OS defaults.
And instead of those designers admitting that they fucked up, they instead double down on their contempt for their users.
Also, can we please not call desktop applications “apps” in response to an article about an OS that predates smartphones by several decades.
Why would someone changing app colors to ones they specifically chose make them use the app less? There is no logic in that statement.