This idea of letting the user personalize the themes has been successful with all kinds of UI’s. In fact, the success has been to such an extent that people have started cashing solely on this idea. Take Stardock Corporation for instance. They developed a tool called Windowsblinds back in 1998 which allowed the user to change the appearance of Windows with a host of preset themes. This tool popularized greatly which illustrates that users do enjoy personalizing their UI themes. For those users who are not already acquainted with this tool, this link could be helpful.
Stardock has developed many other tools in recent years like CursorFX, Fences and IconPackager which serve specific customization purposes in Windows itself. Apart from this, the company also maintains a website community called WinCustomize which, as the name suggests, provides content to customize Windows.
Skins for all kinds of media players has been another major attraction with users. Most users, while selecting a media player, do not merely study what all file formats it can support and play, but are also interested in what kinds of skins are available with it. Furthermore, there are numerous online businesses which boast of free mobile phone themes and wallpapers downloads. The number of visitors websites like mobile9 get once again illustrates my point.
We have seen all kinds of applications using this technique to boost their popularity. Web browsers like Firefox and Chrome have come up with themes for the browser window. Even disc writing utility Nero gives its users an option to change the color scheme of the interface window with a single mouse click as the following screenshot depicts. There are many more applications which offer such customizable interfaces.
Apart from presets, tools are now available which take the idea of personalized themes a step further by allowing the users to create their own themes. These tools come with user-friendly wizards which can be operated by users who have no knowledge of design at all. And these tools give such users tons of pride and an immense ego-boost when they use a theme they themselves created for their cellphone or desktop.
Recently, this trend was seen affecting social networking websites as well, with Orkut initiating the concept of profile themes. Taking advantage of the general human tendency to exhibit one’s superiority, profile themes were introduced as another move to let the users define themselves by the kind of theme they chose. The idea almost immediately popularized with numerous users joining the race to compete for who could flaunt the best theme on their profile.
The implication of the above discussion is that inclusion of customizable UI themes is valuable to any user for two reasons. One, it lets them set-up the tool as per their convenience and liking. Secondly, it provides them with yet another way to show-off, which I guess, most users love.
