The GIMP of multimedia players
VLC media player is one of the most known free and open-source multimedia players in the world. And for a good reason too: it is cross-platform, boasts numerous features—even obscure ones like video streaming over network.
Everything in it is great, except that you cannot pause and resume the video with a mouse click. At first, I thought that was a problem with my wireless mouse. Then, after researching about it I stumbled upon this: a plugin that pauses and plays the video on mouse click, no joke.
In software there is a concept known as user experience or UX — effectively a collection of well known patterns that users already know and use, which makes it easier to transfer skills between different software. Things like drop-down menus, radio button circles and checkbox boxes, things like that. Universal everywhere.
More transparent patterns like swipe gestures on mobile or mouse click or dragging — all of these are established UX patterns. Well, not in VLC, at least not in 2026 yet. Some people mention that it is a historic decision because the mouse was reserved for DVD menus.
Whatever the case, the point stands: world-class quality software, that can play almost anything flawlessly can still lack the most basic features. It is a bit similar to how GIMP is a very powerful and ultra-customizable graphic editor, but has atrociously unintuitive user interface—to the point you cannot really use it unless you dedicate yourself to learning it.
So the point of this post is not to bash on the developers, but to highlight the importance of both of the aspects: of technical prowess and ergonomics. Great engineers can spend years of their lives developing great software that is very hard to use. On the other hand, some other software might be polished and beautiful, but lack substance.
As with everything, there must be a balance and harmony. Ideally, people from different fields should collaborate to create such software. Then it is bound to become bespoke.