"That is a problem if you’re a dishonest designer. After all, how do you tell your client that you’ve just reinvented the wheel? You can’t just use boring old buttons in your shiny new product."
The core problem is that people have trouble differentiating between the desire to improve something and the desire to change something.
Also the desire to copy vs innovate. How many "1 button + proprietary dialect of morse code" monstrosities happened because someone heard Johnny Ive brag about reducing the number of buttons on the apple remote?
i used an apple remote recently in an airbnb, i don't know what generation, but it was an atrocious experience. Why would buttons also be a touch interface that perform the same function as the underlying buttons? It was very confusing.
What about flipping it on its head? The problem with being a designer is you want people to notice your buttons. You can't just let them disappear into the background.
20 years ago, the complaints were that everything was dumbed down, and the "power users" were being hung out to dry.
Well, now everyone is a power user. The average iOS user has at least 5 years experience with the UI. People don't need as much hand-holding.
Ahem. I'm old enough to have a hands-on experience with DOS and Win3.1.
When someone hands me their iPhone (eg to show something some page in Safari or asking for help with something) I struggle to navigate anywhere. I have almost none iOS experience, because I never had iPhone. And new users (like kids born after iPhone 1, lol) have zero experience with iOS too.
I guess that dependends on your definition of a power user. Some might see someone spending multiple hours a day with a given software sufficient to be called a "power user".
If I had to make up a definition right now, I'd go for something like: Someone who invests a small(er) amount of time to e.g. configure the software to their needs or learns some keyboard shortcuts knowing it will save them a large(r) amount of time in the long run, by tiny savings spread over weeks (or decades). It's more about the mindset. With that definition it becomes clear why vi is often considered "power user only".
With the frequency of product redesigns the commercial software sees, I can understand why many people hesitante to invest upfront.
The core problem is that people have trouble differentiating between the desire to improve something and the desire to change something.