What is your favorite User Interface? (web application)

Question

I think it would be interesting to get a programmers viewpoint on UI design.

What is your favorite User Interface that you have come across in a web application?

If possible, say a little bit about why you like it.

Answer 1

http://www.google.com is my favorite. Can be considered a "lack of UI" ;)

Answer 2

At the risk of sounding too much of a fan ... I think StackOverflow has a great UI. It is clean, without clutter (except the creeping ads!), the navigation is straight forward and yet manages to compress a fair amount of functionality.

Fairly simple features, like the coloured vote buttons to show what you have voted for, and the live preview really add to the interactive feel.

(And I don't mind the ads as long as they stay away from the flashing punch-the-monkey kind!)

Answer 3

• http://bbc.co.uk homepage
• http://mail.google.com/
• http://stackoverlow.com (that is I liked it before the introduction of ads :)

Answer 4

The new Yahoo Mail UI blew me away when I first saw it. The keyboard shortcuts, drag 'n' drop, tabs, etc. really make it look and feel like a desktop app. Admittedly this quality of UI has become a lot more common on the web in the last few years, but for me at least, Yahoo Mail was the first web app in my experience to bring this kind of usability to the web.

Answer 5

I think stackoverflow has done a great job in many areas in terms of usability, including colour pallete, use of whitespace, anticipating user's need for information and providing or hiding appropriately, non-intrusive JS/AJAX.

Minus points for these increasingly obtrusive ads, though. :P

Gmail is also good. Honourable mention to github.com.

Update: I recently got introduced to FriendFeed. I think they have also done a fabulous job with their web UI, in terms of clean yet attractive design, plus appropriate and helpful use of Javascript and AJAX to provide for a smooth, positive user experience. Check it out.

Answer 6

Web application: Wordpress. It's so powerful, yet clean and easy to use.

Desktop application: Excel (or equivelent). Seriously, a spreadsheet is the most innovative and clever user interface ever devised. It's used for everything. I don't know what the question is, but the answer is Excel.

Answer 7

I think Remember The Milk has a brilliantly clean and intuitive interface

Answer 8

• http://fastladder.com has great UI for feedholic. I can't live without fldr's keyboard shortcuts (and some greasemonkey to change them to fit for me.)
• http://www.instapaper.com is also simple and great. This is temporary storage for web resource marked as read later, and don't need password for make account because of that purpose.

Answer 9

GMail interface is so smooth and fast that I question me why nobody had done that before.

Answer 10

For the CLI lovers out there...

http://cb.vu/

cat about.txt

Not really useful but it's quite interesting.

Answer 11

FreshBooks accounting has a very nice interface.

(Although I upvoted the answer in favor of StackOverflow)