“As user-friendly as a cactus”

(It’s Halloween Week on Unsung, where we’re sharing scary, spooky, and creepy stories.) There aren’t very many YouTube videos that talk about user interfaces of specific programs. I shared one long ago covering the Apple Music app, and this review by Tantacrul (a.k.a. Martin Keary) of music notation software Finale is so much better and more fun, and I wish there were more like it: It’s not just a cutting critique of the user interface of a badly-aged app. It’s also a great introduction to the whole space, and a thought-provoking case study that goes beyond just UI, but also into business context and market changes. (Finale was released in 1988 and discontinued in 2024.) While I would love to see productions like this for other niches (Blender! CAD! screenwriting software! design tools…?), this video already feels like a must watch to anyone working on complex software – even if it’s far away from music. It is a cautionary tale, and it covers the issues of an aging codebase,…