Kai's Power Tools was a magical oasis of creativity-inspiring interface. Sonic Foundry Acid, around the same time, inspired the same love for interaction. It

Kai's Power Tools was a magical oasis of creativity-inspiring interface. Sonic Foundry Acid, around the same time, inspired the same love for interaction. It always felt like software was worth the effort to learn, if the interface was somehow not what you would expect. The engagement was encouraged, because the boundaries for what was standard behaviour for a button were extended. Somewhere along the line, we lost that magic. Was it when skeumorphism became mainstream, and thus un-cool, and then it became un-cool and flat designers took the helm, returning us to boring looking software that didn't encourage use? Either way, I personally apply the lessons I learned during the KPT era every day, working on audio plugins I am reminded to make the tools fun to use and non-primary functionality fun to discover through exploration .. its so important to make a creative tool fun to use and explore. If its just flat, boring UI elements, no matter the power of the software functions made available, the user just won't bother. Or, at least, non-power users will be left behind ..