I agree and I think your ideas form a good model to explain so many issues we've been facing more and more often. Some days ago I wrote here in HN about the ch

I agree and I think your ideas form a good model to explain so many issues we've been facing more and more often. Some days ago I wrote here in HN about the change my stock broker made on their default home broker. It immediately becomes obvious that the people responsible for that design have never performed anything nontrivial with stocks. They created a symmetrical, colorful platform. The symmetry is enforced, therefore you don't have the flexibility of setting up your quote-boxes any longer (perhaps because that would break the artist's concept). Just to mention one of many issues the new design brought. The same applies to the Google Meet example in the article. Functionally, you'd never want those buttons presented that way. But placing them like that makes them look nice and symmetrical and Gestalt-related stuff, so that's the way to go and deal with it, dear users. > Perhaps the hardest part is having the humility to admit, "I don't understand the problem sufficiently" and the empathy to care about the problem enough to learn it well I agree, but don't see that happening, not in the short term at least. I had an argument with a designer some time ago about how much longer the project was going to take and how her ideas were actually substracting value from a user perspective. But she ended the discussion with a "this project has my signature, my reputation is in there". And that's what my criticism against current UX trends is all about. Artist's concept trumps user needs, project maintainability and everything. They are investing all the resources on graphic design matters and this is obstructing the whole field. Some UX folks argue that designers like those "aren't true UX designers". I agree, but those "false" designers seems to be outnumbering the "true" ones. The latter may eventually have to found a new discipline.