Instead of getting easier to use, many of today's computers have, in fact, become more complicated. There are so many features that a novice very quickly can get lost in a maze of choice. The designs that are going to win out from now on are going to have to make the end consumer the central focus of the design. There are two particular reasons for this. Firstly, women are achieving an increasingly influential position in the purchasing cycle for many products.
Women tend to be more practical in the features they seek from a product.
Women will drive functional design. Secondly, as I have written about before, the more we progress into the new millennium the more older people there will be in the world. In every country in the 'First World' people are living longer. This will have a profound impact on the type of society we live in, not to mention the type of products that are designed for it. For starters, older people don't like very small products.