Misen, a spatial app launchpad

Skeuomorphic is so back

June 17, 2026

For a while now I've been vibecoding a bunch of little personal apps, and I wanted a single dashboard to launch and keep track of them all. The typical flat minimal UI navigation patterns (sidebar app switcher, or a dropdown menu with a list of flat icons next to text), were really boring me, and not at all fun to open and get into the mood of starting a task. So my solution was to go the other way entirely and build a skeuomorphic menu, a 3d-modeled room that I can play in and replicate the feeling of sitting down in a curated space to start getting to work.

Like many designers, I've been craving UX that feels real and not so lifeless (cue the nostalgia for WinAmp). Design used to be playful and exciting, but somewhere along the way, capitalism asked design to trade in experimentation for flat UI for fear of losing out on profit. Take Microsoft Bob. It was a precursor to our modern day desktop that introduced people to the idea of exploring your computer through a maximalist, messy, virtual house. It failed spectacularly for a lot of reasons, not least of all that it required 8MB of RAM when most computers at the time only had 4MB.

Well, that was 1995. It's 2026, I have 16GB of RAM, and we have three.js

So I set out to build Misen, short for mise en place or mise en scène, whichever you prefer. Using Plash, it sits directly on my desktop at the second-lowest rendering level, just above the native desktop level, but below desktop icons, the dock, and any other windows or menus.

Almost every object in this personal space corresponds to a locally-hosted app that I've been building out for my personal use. Each of my personal apps can also cross-pollinate and integrate with each other, clicking, say, the whiteboard brings up a modal widget that lets me quickly add an item to my to-do list.

There are three layouts for different types of "rooms" for context switching. I use my desk at home for both work and downtime, and I wanted this part to feel like I could have both my work computer and my video games, art supplies, and music instruments all at my desk, and switch between them whenever I wanted.

My favorite part is that I can generate a poster as a widget or launcher for any app or website URL, and decorate a cute little gallery of wall art, apps, and bookmarks.

And unlike my real home office, in Misen I can rearrange and resize furniture, change the lighting, change the wall colors, adjust the time of day outside, even pick up the whole apartment and move it to another location if I'd like. Maybe I want to be on the beach, or have a mountain view outside my window. Whatever I'm in the mood for in my little digital workspace home base.

If you liked this, check out some of my other projects here. And if you'd like to give feedback on this project or have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email at sami @ samismith dot com, or message me @hellosami on X, the Everything App.