Ask HN: What is the most incredible UI you have experienced and why?

[n_coats]

Every now and then, I'll come across a site/app with a UI that completely pulls me in. It seems flawless. Most of them have a healthy blend of imagery complimented perfectly with other front-end components.

Are there any UI's that you find incredible, either from an artistic or technological perspective, and what is it about them that captures your attention?

[Someone1234]

For all of its flaws I will say Google Docs Spreadsheet.

While it doesn't replace Excel fully, you can use it and almost forget you're using a "webapp." The cells/columns look great, feel great, and they almost nail the desktop experience down to a tee.

It is actually a fairly old webapp, but I still haven't seen anything which made you forget that it was a webapp quite that well. Even GMail/Outlook.com still feel like webapps even with how good they both are design wise.

[gnusouth]

I really like XFCE's Thunar. In particular, the bulk rename feature is easier to use than any command-line tool and is really powerful. I use it for all my file renaming.

In the 10ish years that I've been using software I don't feel it has really improved much. I think my ideal UI is a traditional window with a few menu items and a really deep preferences window, like some of the software I used to use on OS X Leopard. Lots of recent software seems to sacrifice customisability in the name of simplicity (Windows 8+, GNOME 3, Ubuntu Unity). I don't think this needs to be the case, complexity tucked away inside menus won't ever bother users who want pure simplicity. I think lots of developers drawn to the "command-line-only" mindset would actually be happier with GUIs of this kind, but I'm speaking only from my experience (I use the command-line extensively, and Linux, not OS X).

[garethsprice]

Truly great UIs aren't memorable - they just work and you don't even think about them. Elevators, gas ovens, hourglasses. If you can make a useful application with a UI as simple, intuitive and forgettable as any of those, you've succeeded.

[rprospero]

Not a UX person, so I'm a little surprised that you list the hourglass. I always thought that they had a terrible UI, mostly on account of not having a proper reset mechanism.

[rfergie]

Can't tell if you are joking or not.

The reset mechanism for an hourglass is intuitive and gives very clear feedback on whether or not the operation suceeded

[n_coats]

I agree, but I do think from a cosmetic perspective some UI's can be memorable, mainly because I've experienced some that are.

[LarryMade2]

Second Life's 3-D navigation, menus and editing, from the camera control for the AV to constructing #D virtual objects with primitives.

I think that’s why SL is still so popular because it got the interface right, non-technically inclined people can learn to build rudimentary objects in a couple hours and its enough to hook many of them into becoming content builders.

Another would be FoxBase+/Mac for under a meg of object code the UI for data management and screen/form building was great. I got ugly when MS came in and standardized it into FoxPro for Windows compatibility.

The oldest best UI was the Print Shop on 8-bits changed the face of cork bulletin boards since.

[VikingCoder]

Old versions of Winamp were pretty great.

Also I remember being pretty blown away when Delphi came out.

[brickmort]

I have a special place in my heart for Winamp's classic UI. In my opinion, it was the most intuitive interface for a music player. it had a playlist, equalizer, plugins, all of which were condensable to a fraction of it's full size. Of course, now there are a number of similar players that have the same capabilities, but shit, Winamp 2.x was where it started. Even today, it blows todays iTunes interface way out of the water.

[archagon]

Incredible? I don't know if I'd quite go so far, but Reeder on iOS has a really fluid, slidey interface that works like a stack of cards. The best part is that you can drag to navigate back/forward from almost anywhere on the screen. I find myself constantly swiping back and forth just because it's so much fun.

[brudgers]

AutoCAD. Keyboard. pointer. non-branching scripts. branching scripts, dumb simple UI configuration, simple UI configuration, and full blown API's for creating full blown application layers.

It's UI's are sufficient for the spectrum of users, not tailored as demoware or onboarding new users You can even awk and sed the drawing data.

[kphild]

Airbnb. It still amazes me how playing huge video clips in the background adds to the experience without being distracting.

[n_coats]

yes! That's a great example!

[yen223]

No love for Apple?

Touchscreen-centric gadgets have appeared long before the iPhone came to the market, but the work Apple put in to the first iPhone's UI made touchscreens more useful than the traditional phone keypad interface for the first time.

[AnimalMuppet]

I think it was FrameMaker, on an SGI Indigo. It was the most amazing example of "progressive disclosure" that I've ever seen. It was amazing how easy it was to find what you wanted, and yet how uncluttered it was.

[talltofu]

I love this https://www.wealthfront.com/tools/startup-salary-equity-comp.... It uses D3.js

[coppolaemilio]

FL Studio is super confortable to write songs on it! You should check it out.