it's called flat? let's go with flat.
because of less being able to be screwed up, and appealing flat is easier to make than complicated... curvy? bubbly? idk.
i'll just gonna focus on webpage design here, because there's a lot of crooks and crannies as to how these things apply differently in other aspects of design (post vista windows is kind of its own story, which counteracts what i'm talking about)
basically think of it this way. most books have the vast majority of pages clean and blank where the clear contrast of the text can be read. now, each book could be personalized with each page having a random set of patterns behind the words. but it tires the eyes unless done very well. like, actual strain. takes
a lot of focus to parse complicated imagery.
interestingly, there's a similar movement in books that there was incredulous and indulgent detail in quite a bit of older manuscripts. tomes were precious to make, precious to read (in the west, they were often connected to the esoteric and mystical), so you had a lot of time to properly detail each page, and in turn, reading a book was also a considerable endeavour since they were few and far between.
a similar thing happened with the internet. as processing power and graphics and whatever made it easier to showcase what you could do that made your technological thing special. websites were done on dialup, so it was something you dedicated time to, it was limited. then each website would have a lot of care put into it looking like its own thing. but as things have come always-online, people are always browsing websites, etc. it emulates the physical page to lessen strain then (a lot of early desktop design did that too in another way, to shorthand what was required of the user to take in; desktop, folder, recycling bin are all office elements).
like, have you ever been at an art museum for a whole day? brain gets tired, whether you enjoy it or not.
basically - like books, white background = less strain, unlike books buttons and (more) lines are needed, so keep buttons simple and add hamburgers and such.
for people that think it's a temporary design movement - i mean, i agree, but we ain't gonna see much like this again
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