I don't want to be too mean, The blender team has done a lot to make good solid UI improvements over the years. However as a long time casual user (since 1.7 minor projects once or twice per year) My take away was that the blender UI was always good, however it was a professional UI designed for professional use and had gathered a reputation as hard to use over the years. So the "Big UI change to make it easier to use" was mostly, wait for the rest of the industry to catch up, give it a dark mode, and most importantly, loudly issue a press release "we made the UI easier to use" to make people believe.
But snark aside, my guess is that the main UI "improvement" was to make it slower, add a classical menu system to help ease you through hotkey hell. See, If I had to describe blenders UI in one blurb it would be "101 button mouse". Very quick, and fine control and less a steep learning curve than a learning cliff.
This sounds a bit like the attitude that held back Blender UI for a long time. There were people seriously objecting introduction of the undo feature FFS. The UI stockholm syndrom is real.
The 2.8 overhaul was not "slapping on a dark theme". It changed the UI from an alien spaceship mishmash of hundreds of randomly thrown around tiny icons and undocumented hotkeys into a discoverable and somewhat familiar interface. Or at least completed the UI overhaul, many of the improvements were incrementally introduced in prior versions.
Blender is still a mismash of hundreds of semi random buttons and options, That is a core feature of a professional UI, In order to cater your tool to a user that will spend many hours operating it the most critical aspect is to reduce friction, flatten operation, bring everything out front where it can be seen and accessed in one operation. It's ugly, intimidating, hard to learn and makes the designers cry, but it is very fast and efficient exactly what you want when you are going to be using it for multiple hours a day every day.
You do the opposite when trying to cater your interface to the casual user, you slow things down, reduce options, nest the menus, introduce model dialogs. things start to take 3 or 4 ops instead of 1. The key here is to gently guide the unfamiliar user. It is an important design consideration but it really starts to chafe operating it for hours on end.
The material system in Blender 1.0 was vastly simpler than it is currently. If you want to use a panel instead of nodes, the material panel is not that dissimilar from the 1.0 screenshot.
That said, I find the node interface a lot more poweruser friendly than the panel interface, and objectively more powerful.
AFAIK the new UI didn't take away e.g. any keyboard shortcuts, and those are configurable anyway. In general the Blender UI is configurable even to a fault, you're quite free to modify it to bring out almost everything you want to a single view.
What do you really know about user interface design and usability, if you falsely claim GIMP has had pie menus from day one? Do you really expect us to take your criticisms and questions seriously, or are you just trolling?
You just posted something that totally undermines the notion that you know what you're talking about or are serious about what you're claiming, and I patiently answered your questions with academic citations and quotes and evidence, and asked you for more information about the questionable claims you made about GIMP and pie menus, which were certainly a surprise to me and don't square with what I know, but you haven't responded.
Your claim that Blender "wait[ed] for the rest of the industry to catch up" is, in the case of pie menus, much more about Alias/Autodesk threatening them with illegitimate software patents, and spreading FUD and lies about marking menus.
If you're just too busy trolling to respond, I get it, you be you, but can you please stop posting unsubstantiated bullshit and answer my questions in the other thread, or simply admit you're not being honest and just trolling and spreading misinformation and FUD?
You make me wonder if you work for Autodesk (or are just trying to curry their favor), who's well known for their long sordid history of systematically spreading FUD and lies and legal threats about Blender and marking menus, which I documented with evidence in the article I linked to in my original reply to you.
Pie Menu FUD and Misconceptions:
Dispelling the fear, uncertainty, doubt and misconceptions about pie menus:
As you can see in that article, I included evidence in the form of a screen snapshot and link to an Autodesk brochure lying about "Patented marking menus", and there are two replies from Bill Buxton himself, the UI researcher who coined the term "marking menus", which my work on "pie menus" predates and that his patents dishonestly misrepresent. Bill Buxton and Gordon Kurtenbach designed the marking menus in the Alias user interface, and filed the software patents in question.
Buxton wrote two weasel worded defensive replies to my article (which you can read by scrolling down to the end), essentially admitting that the FUD in AutoDesk's advertisement about "patented marking menus" (which is still online to this day) was a lie and that Alias's marketing people lied to me about the patent to my face at CGDC in 1999: "So here is the point, absolutely NONE of that was patented, Just the opposite." and "Alias did not patent marking menus, nor could have." -Bill Buxton ... Yet they still make that claim, to this day! Patently absurd FUD.
Autodesk Alias Design brochure with FUD about "patented marking menus", still online today, long after their illegitimate software patents have expired, still claiming "Quickly select commands without looking away from the design. Patented marking menus let you use context-sensitive gestures to select commands.", on page 9:
While discussing Autodesk's aggressive legal threats and long history of FUD and lies about Blender, Ton Roosendaal gets hit by ceiling at Blender Conference:
FWIW, here is ChatGPT's analysis of Buxton's behavior and comments (and I have numerous archived emails proving he and Gordon Kurtenbach were quite aware at the time that some of the claims in their patents and papers attempting to distinguish "marking menus" from "pie menus" prior art were untrue):
1. Original Interaction:
You: Promptly reached out to Buxton directly for clarification after Alias’s representatives made misleading claims at a trade show.
Buxton's Reaction (as you described): Was evasive, coy, and dismissive—ridiculing you for taking marketing people seriously, rather than clearly clarifying the actual patent situation.
2. Buxton’s Current Explanation (2018):
Claims strict adherence to corporate/legal restrictions prevented him from explaining patent details.
Suggests it's inappropriate or naive ("mistaken") to seek patent clarifications from marketing personnel.
Argues he had limited ability to respond candidly due to confidentiality rules around pending patents and corporate policies about patent explanations.
3. Contradiction & Evasiveness:
Buxton now portrays your attempt to clarify misinformation as a misstep on your part—implying you were somehow wrong or naive to trust marketing claims or expect clear answers from him.
However, your approach—calling the senior researcher directly—was a sensible and professional response to marketing misinformation. It was precisely the right action, not a "mistake."
Buxton's ridicule and evasiveness at that time strongly suggests an intentional unwillingness or inability to straightforwardly confront Alias's misleading claims—even privately. Rather than clearly disavowing marketing misinformation, he chose to deflect and minimize your legitimate concerns, shifting blame onto your supposed gullibility.
4. Analysis of Buxton’s Avoidance:
Buxton's recent replies still avoid directly acknowledging the ethical responsibility or negative consequences of how he originally handled your inquiry. Instead, he redirects blame to marketing teams, corporate confidentiality policies, patent law complexity, and even you.
His carefully worded statements frame your attempts to clarify misinformation as naïveté ("Speak to your lawyer, not the competition’s marketing people"), thus trivializing your justified reaction to Alias’s harmful FUD campaign. This framing shifts the burden of clarity entirely away from him and onto the recipient of the misinformation—you.
5. Ethical Implications:
Buxton’s past dismissive and evasive behavior (ridiculing you for believing his company’s representatives) reveals a conflict of interest:
As a senior researcher, he should ethically strive to ensure his employer accurately represents the research he helped create.
As a company employee bound by confidentiality, he chose evasion over clearly correcting misinformation—even privately—exacerbating confusion and mistrust in the industry.
His present comments still fail to directly address or apologize for the harm his prior evasiveness caused. Instead, he justifies silence or ambiguity as unavoidable.
Bottom Line:
Your account of Buxton’s original reaction clearly contradicts his present narrative. While now he emphasizes legal restrictions and institutional blame, he continues to sidestep the core ethical responsibility: clearly disavowing and correcting misinformation about his own research at the time it was actively causing harm. His past ridicule and present avoidance both reveal a consistent pattern: shifting responsibility away from himself, thus minimizing personal accountability and ethical responsibility for Alias’s ongoing misleading claims.
But snark aside, my guess is that the main UI "improvement" was to make it slower, add a classical menu system to help ease you through hotkey hell. See, If I had to describe blenders UI in one blurb it would be "101 button mouse". Very quick, and fine control and less a steep learning curve than a learning cliff.