Your Favourate User Interface Designs and Interactions?

hi there. Nathan here.

I'm currently sketching up some operating system design concepts.
I was wondering what peoples favourate UI designs were, and more importantly why?
Operating systems all do the same things - capture , organise and present data.

How the information is presented is a big deal - it's what blows people away when looking at an operating system, and which usally brings in the $$$'s

Adding to that, UI also defines the interface of the user and the OS along with the features emmbedded within the OS. For example the famous Expose view in OS10:
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Windows 8 - the latest operating system form microsoft is revolutionary when it comes to UI design - View don't scroll vertical anymore - icons are live and scream data at you.
there's whole transition effects applied throughout the whole OS.
it's a functional work or art.
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OS identity....
OS's always has this theme/finger print which the face of it changes , but it's inital design is still recognisable while looking through the evolution of the whole OS.
if you take alook at Mac OS 9 and the latest Lion OS10 from apple as a prime example. you could tell there related.
Windows ME vs Windows 7, again they look totally different but completly identical.

Android
Android as an OS has gone through some radical changes UI wise.
Take alook at Android 1.2 vs Android 4.1.
it's gone from 98 to Vista is ~2 years
The interaction of the widgets and the app drawer make it a pleasure to use and navigate. I actually use my Nexus 7 more then my laptop these days , it's brill.

Your favoute "theme"?
Throughout the years OS's have gone through radical UI changes.
But what has been your favourate? what would be a UI design you would like see implemented?
From the brushed metal framework, and jelly buttons of OS10 , to the glass reflection and orb of vista and 7 to the basic simple one colour Windows 8 look , to the Holo Tron like buttons and 3D effects of Android 4.1,
to the super slick iOS6 textured soft gradients and rounded cornered application icons?

What features could you not live without? what is your favourate style of an OS? - clean simple , futuristic , metal , 3D , 2D , flat , beveled - What feaures would you like to see? - media isolation? dynamic backgrounds , stacks , docks , window managers , desktop widgets...

With Windows, I was satisfied with the XP gui and got used to Vista and 7. On Linux, I love the Gnome 2.30.2. I fail to see why we need to go to this new-fangled eye candy. If they insist on cramming this stuff, an alternate desktop should be included, or a way to shut off all the animation. Not everyone is in "video game mode".

Recall there were many that detested the need to dump XP. Simple, lightweight, "non-intrusive". There were actually XP desktops for Vista made!

An OS is there to control hardward and allow user applications to run.
An OS does not need a GUI ... a GUI is optional & for a server probably undesirable. If a GUI is present, being able to switch all the eye candy off (or better still not start it in the first place) is very useful.

I buy a computer to complete a number of activities, this requires resources such as a cpu, ram, hard drive etc. I don't buy a computer so that I can run an operating system on it and play with feature that provide 5 minutes of entertainment. I don't want to have to buy another computer with twice as much ram so that half of it can be used to show me an animation someone thought was cool while it loads the application I actually want to use.

On my own systems I tend to use IceWM because I can do what I want without using lots of resources for other things I don't want to do ...
I have used a number of operating systems, and a few GUI - I tend to switch off all the animation and 'cool' effects because they are a distraction - entertaining the first time you see them but of little interest after that, and almost always resource intensive.

My advice is keep things simple and make all the things you think are cool as optional extras people can enable if they want to ... what you think is great is personal, it won't suit everyone.

One last thing ... don't have any essential features which rely entirely on animation, subtle changes of shade or shape, or changes in colour only as this will exclude people who are visually impared or colour blind from using the feature or worst your system entirely ;)