There is something I have wanted to make for a long time. I think that most UIs are flawed as they are static. So, instead of having a bunch of pixels fixed and embedded into the code you have an algorithm with the seed UI. As the user interacts with UI the UI adapts to her/him. for example if the user uses a particular feature a lot then that feature becomes more prominent and the menu adjusts itself accordingly, but that is just one example. You could for example dynamically interact with the user by analyzing and crafting a timeline of her activities to get a sense of perspective on what she needs, and that is the key in a way. Making stuff more personalized cannot be done by someone disconnected from me I need something that grows with me as I grow with the software.
I am pretty sure that it's possible to implement this in a really beautiful way. I just wish I knew enough to do.
Oh and why can't I get email notifications for comments?
One other thing to watch out for in adaptive UIs is that the user should have the option of customizing it manually, and/or reverting to "standard" mode. Microsoft's menus that hide infrequently used items can be difficult to learn, since they're always changing. It also makes it hard to borrow someone else's computer a moment because their menus are all different.
As for the comment notifications, they are disabled by design as an anti-spam measure. It lets me auto-delete comments that spam scripts submit with an email address attached.
Yes, that's true but the thing is that adaptive UIs are unexplored territory, and I think that a lot more can be done from this concept than hiding and showing options. If you think about it most of the tools that we need to make something like that already exist. It's just that no one has truly figured out how they should go together. It is a really interesting problem that I wish I'll get to solve someday.
Oh.
Um, by the way was it supposed to be funny to leave the Email addresses privacy policy below the comment box?
I actually thought that I had gone blind due to sleep deprivation for a good 5 minutes.
Hmm, the email address note there is added in by a plugin, so it didn't get pulled out with the rest of the code, and I've never gotten around to getting rid of it.