The thing that gets me is these large companies obsess over their UIs, so don't they consult with UI experts? Yet why do their UIs become predictably worse over time? Perhaps a certain subset of people actually really like featureless, pseudo-minimalist, vague, vacant, and contrary UIs??

bean counter excel model allocates jr salary to UI UX person (seen as “soft” work, “not real engineering”) and no feedback loop to realign model to reality, i.e. frontend has no clear KPI yet the way backend infrastructure does (get adtech to reach next scale magnitude). Resulting in salary structures that bias towards what the bean counters understand and amplifying their biases

Possibly a result of labor division? The more a business grows the more there are parasitic positions opening (see Parkison's law). Thus the selection of people whose work matches the intellectual mediocrity of their superiors (graphic designers in lieu of competent programmers)

Bad UIs hurt users, but users do not usually make the choice of which software to buy or use. Therefore, bad UIs do not hurt sales or user engagement. Bad UIs can even boost engagement, and ad views.

The problem is that they prioritise looking elegant over being good usable.

Buying decisions are made on looks, not analysis of UI. People will buy pretty, and most people will never be aware of bad UI - they just adjust to it.

This article by Don Norman and Bruce Tognazzini has been discussed on HN before: https://www.fastcompany.com/3053406/how-apple-is-giving-desi... I cannot find the post that got a lot of comments though.

You know why, it's because getting the user in a daze of confusion worsens his decision making, benificial to the app owner.

This sounds too simple to be true.

Believe it or not, the problem is likely that they are consulting UI "experts". Many designers responsible for this stuff (at least the ones I've worked with, and I can extrapolate based on what other companies have released) haven't been in the industry for very long and they don't really have the practical experience in using computers and applications to recognize the harm they are inflicting. Combine this with the fact that the one of the main ways for designers to get pay increases is to pad their portfolio with dribbble-worthy form-over-function designs and you start to get things like the OP is lamenting. And the Slack redesign.

can you link to a screenshot or essay demonstrating a correct UI?

No. But i can teach you about the shittiness, tho.

The header line above your post has inert text (the "on:"), buttons (in-place action, like "flag") and links (takes you somewhere, like "parent"). They all look the same. You need to hover the mouse over them to see which areas are clickable, something which is not possible on touch interfaces at all.

I’m using a touch screen phone to read this. I have no problems.

... hovering over the elements?

Understanding what to click on

There's something to this. I worked in credit card processing for a few years. The dumbness of on line card inputs annoys me to no end. State Farm and Papa Murphy's have good experiences, most places absolutely do not and should be publicly shamed