They actually polled for user feedback, listened to it and acted on it quickly? That sounds like a great consultancy!
TBH I’d guess that people would have complained whatever the new design was, people hate change. But yes, flat designs are often on the worse end of the spectrum
No we dug out a faculty statistician and did the analysis and paid them even more money to fuck it off.
The consultancy resisted this horribly because the tech lead is a performative bullshitter and it doesn’t look good on his portfolio page that it looks like something from 2001.
He should show both the prettier and the ugly version side by side and give it as an example of him being adaptable and willing to please his client instead of himself.