It comes down to personal prefs: One is only happy with lots of dials and aperture rings, the other likes it as simple as possible, the next does like to be the reign over loads of settings, organized in banks or User/Custom registers. So I can see what kind of questions UI and body designers have to face. I kinda like consequent design: Instead of "one recipe to rule them all", the designers have a rather clear idea of the customer's needs.
And the bigger the user group gets, the more compromises need to be made.
I know Nikon, Fujifilm, Sigma cameras and menus well. Of those, Sigma has the most simplified and easy to handle concept of use - but lacks of a lot of features. Fujifilm has great IQ and small ergonomics. I throw it in the same bin as Nikon Df: Dials, wheels, buttons menus are fighting each other and some important functions I could not use the way I would want it. This makes the manuals also very complicated to read, as well as to learn the handling.
Nikon works for me, very much depending on the model. I used to be a big fan of U1, U2 but today I find it overly complicated and unreliably intransparent. I have no idea what setting will be saved in an U-set of parameters and which doesn't get into it. That's a downside of all DLSRs with 4 digit numbers - and the Z as well. But since a mirrorless camera can clearly show the effect of settings in the viewfinder picture (dark, light, wrong WB) some priorities changed for me.
As to the comfort of holding, transporting, changing lens and use the controls, Nikon is first (and I add: with a battery grip, with an L-plate), Sigma second (with grips attached) and Fuji last. If Fuji would improve their controls - bigger buttons, less easy to (mis)adjust aperture rings and a couple of other quirks, it still would be second at best. I know the X-T3 and X-H1 have improved controls, but the menu system still sucks in my view.
Pentax K-... was also a good user experience, but they went too far with making it cheap to produce. AF issues ruin the best UI. Canon I only know form the little G11. I would rate the handling as average or a bit better, but then I also made thousands of pictures with it - so it can't be that bad. Once set up, it is very good to use with it's tilt-swivel display. One of the very few cameras in it's class with an (pretty bad, though) optical viewfinder, so if I would run out of battery I would switch off the display and get much more shots of the battery.
Sony I only know from the old DSC 515...828 line. Their current design makes it easy to oversee for me - and if it would be Bauhaus, Klaus, it would at least look pleasing
Back in the day, when Porsche designers made the Contax RTS look like a thing falling out of the future, was the first and last time I fell in love with a camera design, it was so well done and Yashica/Kyocera did a bit of a poor job to the inner parts. So, even the best user experience is useless if the product is unreliable.
Today I wonder how much freedom the designers had and how much the engineers worked with or against them?
Hasselblad's mirrorless and Phase One are also great to work with, but out of the financial region to justify the purchase for amateur purposes.
And the bigger the user group gets, the more compromises need to be made.
I know Nikon, Fujifilm, Sigma cameras and menus well. Of those, Sigma has the most simplified and easy to handle concept of use - but lacks of a lot of features. Fujifilm has great IQ and small ergonomics. I throw it in the same bin as Nikon Df: Dials, wheels, buttons menus are fighting each other and some important functions I could not use the way I would want it. This makes the manuals also very complicated to read, as well as to learn the handling.
Nikon works for me, very much depending on the model. I used to be a big fan of U1, U2 but today I find it overly complicated and unreliably intransparent. I have no idea what setting will be saved in an U-set of parameters and which doesn't get into it. That's a downside of all DLSRs with 4 digit numbers - and the Z as well. But since a mirrorless camera can clearly show the effect of settings in the viewfinder picture (dark, light, wrong WB) some priorities changed for me.
As to the comfort of holding, transporting, changing lens and use the controls, Nikon is first (and I add: with a battery grip, with an L-plate), Sigma second (with grips attached) and Fuji last. If Fuji would improve their controls - bigger buttons, less easy to (mis)adjust aperture rings and a couple of other quirks, it still would be second at best. I know the X-T3 and X-H1 have improved controls, but the menu system still sucks in my view.
Pentax K-... was also a good user experience, but they went too far with making it cheap to produce. AF issues ruin the best UI. Canon I only know form the little G11. I would rate the handling as average or a bit better, but then I also made thousands of pictures with it - so it can't be that bad. Once set up, it is very good to use with it's tilt-swivel display. One of the very few cameras in it's class with an (pretty bad, though) optical viewfinder, so if I would run out of battery I would switch off the display and get much more shots of the battery.
Sony I only know from the old DSC 515...828 line. Their current design makes it easy to oversee for me - and if it would be Bauhaus, Klaus, it would at least look pleasing
Back in the day, when Porsche designers made the Contax RTS look like a thing falling out of the future, was the first and last time I fell in love with a camera design, it was so well done and Yashica/Kyocera did a bit of a poor job to the inner parts. So, even the best user experience is useless if the product is unreliable.Today I wonder how much freedom the designers had and how much the engineers worked with or against them?
Hasselblad's mirrorless and Phase One are also great to work with, but out of the financial region to justify the purchase for amateur purposes.