I think we forgot many of the lessons from the 90s, in naive attempt to emulate Apple. Here's list of standard things that every application in the 90s had, tha

I think we forgot many of the lessons from the 90s, in naive attempt to emulate Apple. Here's list of standard things that every application in the 90s had, that are frequently missing from the current UIs: - Menu - Typically at the top of the screen or window, you can go there and find everything you can do with the application, at the consistent place; moreover, as you go over menu entries, an helpful explanation what does what will appear at the bottom of the screen. - Toolbar - A place which has most commonly used tools. They are represented by icons, text, or both (and you can actually make a choice in settings). Typically, you can configure the toolbar to your heart's content. Toolbars can also depend on the context. - Context menu - Right clicking on some object will give you menu of things that you can do with that object. Again, explanation of what each of these actions does appears helpfully at the bottom of the screen. - Tooltips - As you mouse over any UI element, it will helpfully explain you what it's purpose. - Buttons - Things that are clickable look visually differently than other things that are not. For example, they have different shading. Buttons may also give feedback that they are clickable when you mouse over them. Also, if you click thing that is clickable, it will give a feedback that it was clicked by changing the shading. I think the big problem here is that UX/UI people want to be artists and so create art, not useful application for end users (which often means follow some standard!). So the end result is even more disastrous when programmers design UI (at least they are rational about it, in some sense), but the cause is the same - it's putting your own ego (behold at my artistic creation!) in front of actual usability.