Do you want many of the benefits of the new Drupal 8 admin area, without actually needing to upgrade? Check out the Adminimal theme.

Adminimal provides a responsive admin area for Drupal 7 sites.

Adminimal also has several usability improvements. For example, Adminimal has colored buttons for common tasks like Submit, Preview and Delete to them easier to see. Adminimal also provides improved layouts for the Configuration, and Module screens. 

In this video, taken from our Better Drupal Administration class, Robert Ring introduces you to Adminimal: