If you could change the UI of any software. Which would you change?

Miller Columns for GUI file navigation!

OSX has them, and is one of the workflow reasons I prefer OSX.

Windows doesn't have column views, and the 3rd party file explorers options are not to my taste!

I wish Gnome would add them!

I'd be happy using Linux more of the time if they did!

Windows telemetry controls seem broken/incomplete by design. We should be able to turn it off by describing the process over the phone to a 80yo relative. It needs to be simple but not simplistic.

OSX, to make the instances and windows of a given program that are running more immediately and passively visible. It's too easy to lose track of open windows in the background on OSX (yes I know you can swipe to see them, but that is something you have to do distinctly of other interactions with programs. This is something Windows and KDE gets right.

Also, the ribbon bar on desktop MS Office is inconsistent, with some things accessible via tabs/ribbons, and some not. in a ribbon UI, everything should be accessible through the same interface.

This may sound half-baked, but I personally plan on exploring how far I can take the ideal and form of a "book" oriented UX/UI, in a least one future project--but is a subject I've written about almost too much.

If this sounds silly for software, then what exactly is the UX/UI of a spreadsheet application, and why is it so universally useful? At first, I thought this was by virtue of its tabular UI/UX, but books are nothing but rows and columns of text, are they not? At least Awk thinks so. What is the difference between a cell and a sheet in a relational sense? I see no difference, or that is, its design is isomorphic.

A book is a collection of sheets, where a sheet consists of other sheets or views, where a view is any given selection and dimension of text. Sheets can be stacked, ordered, sorted, and indexed into new books, just as words can--and as linguists say, into an infinite set of sentences (views). This design cannot be reduced in a hyper-grammatical sense.

This is to suggest that a "book" UX/UI would require a new way on how we approach language not only within the context of software but language--it's a direct spit in the face of Chomsky himself (although he would have more to say about this than I), but hasn't this been a long ways in coming? It seems as if textual communication is the long term trend, but comes at no surprise to any of us, here whom work remotely. So really when I say "book" based UX/UI, I mean just that, but really--it is augmented natural grammar--a subject beyond the scope of this discussion.

All good UX solves a problem, so what is the problem here? It's increasing the transmission capacity of information over text, or that is, expanding what and how we can express as information with language, without monumental standards. But no language is without communication and therefore the crux of the problem lies in the future of higher level network protocols (if you believe in such a thing).

Blender. Every time I open it, which is only periodically, I am overwhelmed by options. Maybe I am missing something, but it would be great to have say 10 or 20 apps each focussed on just one aspect. I know it would (should) support that under the covers.

DEFINITELY Unity3d, possibly Unreal. compared to the amazong UI Blender has, it's just unbearable to work in Unity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28849708 (my comment in ask hn thread about browser tabs)

And in general, I’d return from a bloating whitespace and large buttons to something really productive.

Not an "app" per se, but if possible I'd like to have a Tiling WM that's has the discoverability and ease of use as more popular floating WMs like macOS's or GNOME. Pop shell's tiling mode is getting close but it's not as powerful yet.

For it to be native and not electron.

Workday.

They have a flashy new interface. compared to our older system. However, it's slower, takes more clicks/screens to do things, and buries some stuff in multilevel menus.

A little larger font for HN because fat fingers

Every mobile app made by google. And especially gmail.

Amazon