Wish we had more skinnable applications these days. UI has become so flat and boring. It’s like the industry became allergic to fun.
In contrast, a lot of classic 1990-2010 stuff was stable and boring because it had reached a point of working well and the visual indicators were consistent.
Now it's more like "pandering to the lowest common denominator of a touchscreen interface, and doing it badly", or "sacrificing good UX in the name of looking different".
I wonder if our current state is a consequence of the 'iteration' of skeuomorphism, where a few decades ago computer UI controls were representations of what people would have been familiar with before - physical buttons on machines or concepts like files in folders, more recently the feedback loop is abstract controls being the input for the next iteration. How many objects in the world that you use in a week give a good template to inspire designers?
Whether MDI was good or not, eh, probably not. But I never would've expected that (of all things) to trigger nostalgia for me.
People have made versions for XP, 7, etc. as well.
Mac OS 9 did this well, but that was because it was effectively single tasking in terms of the user experience.
When portable CD players were still chunky companies would give them a bit more funk, buttons that followed the curves of the device and such. Similarly, before MP3 players went tiny there was some extra space for a bit more design that some Winamp skins would mimic.
Boring flat UIs are more amenable to being endlessly tweaked and AB tested by product managers with no vision other than “make metric go up”. UIs are thoroughly tested to ensure people will engage with the product as long as possible, in the ways that are most beneficial to the product owners.
It’s the difference between hanging out in your friend’s backyard, and hanging out in Disneyland.
As a user, it sucks. Only way out is to actively pursue and use software made by small, human developers rather megacorps. There is still fun, quirky software out there but it doesn’t have $100M marketing budgets so it’s on you to find it.
we lost something unique in the pursuit of true usability and reliability. however, i don't disagree with where we've ended up, i think it's a better interface for any human to pick up and use, but yes, i agree, in comparison it is... boring. but is boring really better?