A nice UI feature in emacs in my configuration was having a bit more control over the mode line (the thing between the buffer and the mini buffer).

Now that I have been controling my hours with emacs org clock, it is really nice to have at glance how many hours I have been working. The issue is that sometimes, my config has a bunch of minor modes and the mode line has a lot of noise. dminish-mode was a great finding for this!