I recently moved and was wearing noise-canceling headphones while using the flat black minimalist buttons on my shiny stove and microwave and realized without h

I recently moved and was wearing noise-canceling headphones while using the flat black minimalist buttons on my shiny stove and microwave and realized without hearing the beep it was hard to tell if I'd hit the button sensor. I had to wait and see how the minimalist alphanumeric display updated to know if I'd pressed the right little bit of text. People with disabilities or deafness would have a hell of a time. > not what would actually be functional for users Functional is ugly and ugly doesn't sell. This has been a problem with product design for decades: durability, usability, safety is all ignored in favor of whatever visual flair maximizes impulse buying. How the product performs when the owner actually uses it is irrelevant. Even worse dynamics are at play when it comes to advertising-supported software services. We've gone from a race to the bottom to a race to hell.