It does seem like most of the UI books I read (I'm UI tone deaf) seem to suggest that I should always assume my users are 10x stupider than I think they are. I think "Don't make me think" had a lot of that. Then there are articles about how flat design is awful and we should all stick to what users already know and make sure that when they see a button they know it's a button and stuff.
This seems counter to my experience, which is that a redesign is usually like christmas morning. designs just get so stale after awhile, and good UX is literally like art you can touch (virtually). I find myself wanting to go to websites and use products simply because they have good UIs. That's one reason why I HATE AWS. They have the worst UI (and it's gotten a LOT better since I started using it). Google's consistent material design is so clean and fresh. Digital Ocean's is like next level for me.
This seems counter to my experience, which is that a redesign is usually like christmas morning. designs just get so stale after awhile, and good UX is literally like art you can touch (virtually). I find myself wanting to go to websites and use products simply because they have good UIs. That's one reason why I HATE AWS. They have the worst UI (and it's gotten a LOT better since I started using it). Google's consistent material design is so clean and fresh. Digital Ocean's is like next level for me.