Why did UI's turn from practical to form over function?
E.g. Office 2003 vs Microsoft 365
It's easy to remember where everything is with a toolbar and menu bar, which allows access to any option in one click and hold move.
Seriously? Big ribbon and massive padding wasting space, as well as the ribbon being clunky to use.
Why did this happen?
I was a moderator on the Paint.NET forums for a long while in the mid to late 00s. You would be surprised at how many questions we got about when Paint.NET would get "the new ribbon UI!"
The answer was never, incidentally.
I've sort of been forced over to Mac (not that it's a bad thing, just a thing), and Paint.NET is perhaps my biggest loss in that transition. I've loved that program since its early days, and is always one of my first installs on any new Windows installation.
Wow, I still use paint.net. My needs are pretty humble, and it still hits that sweet spot between MS Paint and Gimp.