Why are new operating systems and computer programs so often...(read inside)

glennmagusharvey

...designed to have lots and lots of bells and whistles and dongles and generally useless features that at best serve niche purposes and at worst are merely decorative?

ClockworkUniverse

Designers like to try to innovate.

Fractionalminn

Because programmers get a commission for cruft. /silly paranoia

Central Avenue

Sometimes, at least, it's an attempt to get people to bother upgrading.

A few years back, the Microsoft Office developers realized they were their own biggest competitor--that is, many companies simply weren't bothering with new versions of the software because their old ones did all they needed. Why pay for Office XP or Office 2003 when Office 2000 does everything you want?

That's when they ended up redesigning the entire suite with the controversial "Ribbon" interface. Then they marketed this idea that the new design helped people work more efficiently, to try and finally get people to upgrade.

ClockworkUniverse

The problem with Ribbon is that it's only more efficient if you're unfamiliar with its predecessors. Thus the people who already had previous versions didn't need it.



The .docx format, on the other hand, ensured that everyone needed the new version >

Central Avenue

I didn't say it was more efficient, only that they marketed it as such.

ClockworkUniverse

Well, it technically /is/, but having to unlearn everything about word processing cancels that out.