Thank you for all the fleshed out responses. And hitting all my questions haha.
Narrowing down on the UI stuff, this is actually something I do for a living hehe (designer, UIs for webapps, etc) I can definitely echo the need for such things because a good design can actually improve your engagements with the thing itself, through affordances and the like. It's really interesting.
The shader stuff actually went a little over my head 😅 Can't really visualize it right now, and perhaps that's the problem. 🤔
Hmm, is there some help you are looking for wrt UIs and stuff? I'd be happy to offer constructive feedback / ideas if you're open to it. :)