As someone who hasn't played this, 5 years ago when I looked at videos, the UI seemed comically bad. Interacting with something brings up some flying UI text th

As someone who hasn't played this, 5 years ago when I looked at videos, the UI seemed comically bad. Interacting with something brings up some flying UI text that gives in front of you until you disengage or select something. Recent videos show that same UI. Is that UI actually usable? Sometimes the text seems to blend into the background and I'm not sure of the purpose behind the weird flying animations they have