Are those the systems you learned as a teenager/young adult?

I felt the same way about XP, despite it being generally regarded as a UI abomination. I think it was just familiar.

Anyway, I eventually shook lose of that nostalgia, and for me the best usability has been more recent. The wmii/i3/sway family of window managers are have been just great: simple, to the point, and automatic.

I dunno. There are pretty clearly some bad trends in computing generally and mainstream UX specifically, but improvements are still bouncing around in the margins.

I learned Win3.1 as a kid, but I still consider Win7 the best UX that Windows had to date.

Snow Leopard is pretty good, but personally I’ve found that Mavericks (10.9) edges it out for the little bits of polish it has that SL doesn’t, as well as its brighter more cheery color scheme. The only big downside of Mavericks for me is that it’s missing Snow Leopard’s 2D grid of virtual desktops and instead only has the linear arrangement found in modern versions. I really miss the 2D grid.

Mavericks is also the last HiDPI release of Mac OS X that used the Leopard-era icon pack. After that, it went to these garish looking flat icons that I couldn't stand to look at.

I was never a fan of the skeuomorphic icons (and design in general), personally. I think there's a place for flat design and it isn't all bad, in particular peripheral UI elements, like the top menu bar, dock icons, etc. It is interactive elements that should be the ones to stand out, not everything.

If the homogeny of flat design makes the main interactive elements less salient, then everything designed to look 3D with glossy surfaces and brushed metal outlines does the same, just with noise.

I think there should be a combination of both, which I think is why many find the older interfaces from the 90s and early 2000s much more usable.

That's a long way of saying that I prefer the flat application icons and dock on current macOS. The dock stays in the peripheral and the icons identify the application all while not drawing my attention until I purposefully go to it.

I prefer the older psuedo-photorealistic icon style that macOS used to use because it makes dock icons, sidebar items, etc much easier to quickly distinguish. The icons in modern docks all bearing the same shape and rough set of colors significantly impairs usability.

> I think there's a place for flat design and it isn't all bad, in particular peripheral UI elements, like the top menu bar, dock icons

Funnily enough, these are precisely the elements that are flat in the Windows 9x look. (Windows 9x does not have a "dock" but it does have a quick launch bar and a system tray, and these show flat icons.)

It's funny that you mentioned "Snow Leopard", as Apple moving on from that OS version was my reason for going Linux 100% of the time, and I haven't regretted the switch at all.

why? Snow Leopard was widely regarded as an excellent release.

Mavericks to Yosemite I would understand, but Snow Leopard felt like a strict improvement to me. What did it do wrong?

Pretty sure they're agreeing with you.

Apple moved on from Snow Leopard, so they moved on to Linux.

Ah, sorry, I must have read it wrong.

Can you elaborate on what you enjoyed about the Windows Phone? I've heard people say they liked it, but I've never really dug into why before.

The UI was very good. The tiles didn't work on the desktop (Windows 8) but it make a lot of sense on the phone. Every touchable element was large enough that you'd never miss. The UI itself ensured a very consistent experience. I assume that you could do more custom apps, but most apps I used conformed to the general look an feel of the operating system.

One thing I don't think enough people mentions is the messaging app. It integrated with Facebook, before Facebook Messenger. This might not be a big thing today, with people leaving Facebook, but it was absolutely brilliant back then. Basically like iMessage, but with Facebook as the non-SMS protocol. I think it may also have integrated with LinkedIn, I don't recall, but it was suppose to just merge all your contacts into one messaging app.

As much as I dislike Windows on the desktop, Windows Phone made perfect sense. The UI was completely tailored to the touchscreen and was so easy it use and navigate. It's a real shame it didn't take of. In some sense Microsoft should have treated it more like Windows on the desktop and aggressively offered it to OEMs.

Windows Phone was really snappy even on the low end devices. Android at the time had significant lag issues.

The UI was fairly consistent. There was no guessing what was a button, what an accidental drag would do, etc.

The live squares on the homepage, in my opinion, are still better than anything iOS has come up with.

In my opinion it’s this:

The interface was incredibly fast and intuitive. It was slick and easy to understand but felt modern at the same time. The font felt timeless, it had the best camera app for the time, which was a time where amazing mobile phone cameras were just starting to become a thing (Nokia famously made a 42 megapixel camera for their flagship windows phone and the pics were gorgeous)

The first party software was really fast and stable. They were also some of the first phones I ever used with proper OLED screens

If you ever get a chance to use one it’s worth it even if it’s only for a day. Really changes one’s perspective on what’s possible with mobile devices. IMO nothing has captured that magic again

> proper OLED screens

I had the Nokia Lumia 920, which wasn't an OLED screen, but an IPS, if I recall correctly. Even that screen looked beautiful. I think part of it was the font rendering and the UI design just being perfectly suited to the platform. In any case it just looked amazing.

And it really felt like a professional device. Very minimalist but on point. A tablet version of it (not Win8 mismatch) would have been great!

Not OP but I also had a Windows Phone (8). It had a consistent design in every app and it just "felt" good to use. The inboxed apps were great (surprisingly!) and the phones themselves were quite cheap. Windows Phone was optimized for low RAM phones so it ran smooth there. I also miss the keyboard, I rarely mistyped which happens constantly with GBoard. Haven't found a replacement that doesn't suck yet...

It's hard to put into words because you have had to use it to understand!

I despise Windows 10 Mobile though - it killed the whole platform and made the OS unbearably slow. It was full of bugs and it was clear that it was the beginning of the end for Microsoft's mobile amibitions. I use Android now but it's a mess. Google can't decide on a consistent UI + UX and everything is all over the place.

Everything feel smooth, on par with iOS. Unfortunate there no quality apps for it. If you want a detox phone (like light phone) just get an old WP, it's cheaper.

The thing that gets me about iOS is that they tanked responsiveness in exchange for such a small number of features that don’t even work well.