you say this when looking at designs, but when actually trying to use the thing no one is amused if they can’t find things in milliseconds. Therefore, predictable patterns for apps have emerged
There's got to be a way to have functional UX without making every single website look and feel literally identical and dull. I'd personally rather jump through some minor hoops if that meant finding some more whimsy in online spaces
I think theres a way - but that being said mobile devices and specifically mobile messaging or calling apps are probably the least friendly to ‘minor hoops’ in the name of whimsy. Its generally assumed by the designer that the person using the app may be juggling many things and actively moving while trying to communicate.
For example, you wouldn’t put ‘fun and whimsy’ into design of an airplane cockpit. All software is somewhere on the spectrum between ‘extremely necessary tool’ and ‘silly thing we made for fun’. You find more creative UX the farther you get towards the ‘for fun’ side.
All of the apps listed in this post are, at least in part, for fun / leisure though. It's true lots of people use them for work, but there's fun stuff built into Slack and Teams (and also a lot of terrible UX) and people get along just fine with those.
I absolutely agree that there's value in having a good user experience, across the board, but it doesn't have to be whitewashed and boring. Agreed that an airplane cockpit is not the place to be making experimental design decisions 😅
So the first seems to be Threads, the second Twitter, the third Bluesky, the fourth Mastodon and the last I don't know. But this is all so bland and horrifying. We should be able to tell the difference by looking at the app.
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