Scott Jenson: Are we really going to use the same Desktop UX forever?

Scott Jenson discusses the stagnation of desktop user interfaces and how open-source communities like KDE can pioneer new UX paradigms.

media.ccc.de/v/kde2026-7-are_we_really_going_to_use_the_same… The desktop interface has remained fundamentally unchanged for over two decades, relying on legacy paradigms that haven't scaled to meet new modern needs. Industry leaders like Apple and Microsoft are too deeply entrenched in their established ecosystems to risk radical shifts. While the Linux community has shown some appetite for experimentation, much of it has nibbled at the edges such as focusing on tweaking window management. This talk reflects my lifetime experience as a UX designer at Apple and Google and how the deepest innovations happen at the most mundane level: richer input, better data flows, and breaking out of our 2d windowing prisons. Ironically, the open source nature of Linux and specifically KDE provides a unique opportunity to break free from these legacy constraints. Scott Jenson #kde2026 Licensed to the public under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/