The "Gen-Z" look feels wrong. But if you step back a little bit, all the "flat design" trends of 2011 also felt wrong in the exact same way. "You mean that after all the advances in computer graphics we're going to just go back to text on top of a rectangle like Windows 3.1?" A lot of people forget this since flat design is just how everything is done nowadays.
It's not the same as in Windows 3.1 at all. We now have shadows, gradients, far better colors and a lot of smooth animations [0]. The basics are the same, but if you compare the designs side by side, you'll find more differences than similarities.
I feel that there was a transition period were you really needed to show of the new capabilities and colors that your computers can do now. But with current trends, this won't impress anyone anymore and just look cheap, so people got back to subtle, timeless designs.
[0] I'm assuming a well-done design - you can of course overdo it.
Shadows are an essential design element of Windows 3.1, they are just used differently. In flat design a button is a flat piece of paper that may cast a shadow below it because it floats above the layer below it. In Windows 3.1 [1] a button is instead a 3d object that casts a shadow on itself, but because it's "glued" to the UI it doesn't cast a shadow below it.
I agree that they are very different though. Windows 2.11 is a flat design [2], Windows 3 - XP are a design philosophy of physical metaphors.
I think that subtle and timeless have veered into rigid and stultifying. Of course master designers are able to twist it and make it fresh but there aren't enough of them on earth for every project to have one.
For me internet video speed dating is a concept that's fun, spontaneous, maybe corny. None of that is expressed in the filteroff design which looks more like an accountant's blog. It's a "filter on" look.
It looks like a defensive design intended to avoid criticism, but does that inspire users to go out on a limb and try a new form of dating?
Perhaps a different minimalist design (or changes to the copy text) could do the job, but this seems like exactly the type of app where a maximalist, colorful, tongue in cheek kind of design could have worked.
windows 3.1 used contour depth perception. That is one of our fastest perceptual algorithms, truly a gift from nature. 2022 throws that in the trashcan.
"we're going to just go back to text on top of a rectangle like Windows 3.1?" A lot of people forget this since flat design is just how everything is done nowadays."
That's contradictory. "Flat" design is just text on a rectangle (at best); Windows 3.1 actually indicated what was a control and what its state was.
