Windows 8 - Designing for Metro style and the desktop
blogs.msdn.com
blogs.msdn.com
I'm reminded by the interviews with the original Xbox team at MS, who were apparently shouted at by a red faced Ballmer for weeks after they said that it wouldn't run Windows. Imagine how the Xbox's usability and popularity would have been reduced if they tried to run the Windows desktop on it.
It seems to me that there is a huge push at the upper levels in Microsoft to put Windows on everything.
Meanwhile, Apple realized the sad but true fact that most computer users are completely incapable of understanding concepts like the filesystem. They made a tablet that your granny can use without having to be taught. They made a system as foolproof as possible, while the power users who scream "walled garden" and "i needs my zsh shell on it!" can still use it as a casual device and jailbreak it if they want to get the features they require.
Many in the tech media lambasted the iPad as a useless oversized iPod touch, but look at it today. They shipped a "crippled" device that ended up being more usable to more people than the PC has been. They also successfully convinced users who want to be able to do things like spreadsheets and presentations to try things like Numbers and Keynote, which were completely redesigned for touch and work great on the device.
Microsoft hasn't realized this strategy, and I think many users will be worried by the initial lack of apps for Metro and try to use Word and Excel on a 10 inch touch device, and get angry with it when the UI is just too cumbersome.
I played around with a Windows 7 tablet at PC World recently. An anti-virus warning from McAfee or something like that was popping up and becoming modal every time I tried to open the Start menu, then when I eventually managed to kill it, the items in the Start menu were way too small to accurately touch. Text input worked like crap, and IE was barely usable. Anyone buying that device was doomed to constant frustration. (At the same time, a friend of mine, who is a hardcore Arch Linux user and a sysadmin, went in with the intention of getting an Eee Pad Transformer or other android tablet, and was so disheartened by the user experience of those that he left with an iPad 2).
Really, I don't want Microsoft to fail. Many people have hated them for many years, but these days it seems to be more pity than hate. If they released an excellent update to Windows for the desktop, still focusing on the mouse and keyboard, then pushed for developers to make awesome apps for Metro and had that only on tablets, I think they would be much more likely to gain some marketshare, especially if they pushed some cloud syncing features and integration with other products. Of course Windows 8 will gain marketshare anyway, I think mostly through OEM sales, but I don't think the tablet market will pick it up like it might if they focused on a solid tablet-only OS but played the vertical integration game with services.
Just my opinion.
Curious, what was the rationale for not running Windows? I can't think of anything that would necessarily be problematic about it, except resource constraints.
Microsoft hasn't realized this strategy, and I think many users will be worried by the initial lack of apps for Metro and try to use Word and Excel on a 10 inch touch device, and get angry with it when the UI is just too cumbersome.
This assumes MS doesn't think that a tablet version of Office isn't important. I suspect it may be a launch app suite.
Back in the real world, grandmas don't buy gadgets or PCs, and when they do they've got nephews to help them.
Sorry, but the iPhone/iPad are game changers because they fit in your pocket. The Kindle is too, since it's the first rela replacement for books. The iPad on the other hand, besides being cool, just gives me a headache.
The iPad on the other hand just gives me a headache whenever I tried using it for more then one hour.
This bodes well. I hope the Metro UI is as comprehensive as this implies, where casual users will never see the old UI. If you can do it on the iPad, it should be doable on a Win8 tablet (in the new UI).
If Microsoft can pull off a similar analog, I think this could really work.
Legacy windows slowly becomes the truck that Jobs spoke of. Metro becomes the car. Windows, having both, becomes the SUV.
- Wonder what all the fuss in that younger generation is about and take advantage of your Zune Pass? Justin Bieber's face is now staring up at you.
- You and the wife decide to try something "fun" and capture the moment? Yeah, that's going to be hanging out front and center on your phone. Hope there's nobody around next time you check for new mail!
I've actually moved both music and photos off of the start screen because of this issue. And I assume there are other apps (i.e. do you really want people to know how many hours you've spent playing Angry Birds?) where this will happen to people as well...
To be honest, if someone has my phone unlocked I would be more worried about them reading my emails and messing with my facebook account than them knowing how many hours I played Angry Bird.
Also, you can set the background of your photo app so it should not be showing random pictures.
In some ways I'd even give Microsoft the edge (in that Metro Widgets/Gadgets can be interactive)
In Lion the new iPad-like interfaces are directly integrated into the existing OS X shell.
The new filesystem UI stuff is a welcome change, however. (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/23/improving-our-...)
It does seem like if the WIMP interface to Metro can be made to work well, that many many users will flock lemming-like to Metro-style apps.
As a developer, I want to be where the users will be.
Why do you say that without even giving it a fair chance?
They haven't even revealed how it will play with a keyboard and mouse.
With 3 large monitors and lots of multi-tasking, I just don't see this being preferable to the desktop / window metaphor status quo. Not to mention 25TB of files to keep organised.
I realise this will all still be possible by running the "desktop app" (explorer.exe?), I just don't expect to do anything but run that straight away.
Again, I'm sure this will be excellent for small form factor and casual users (provided it's implemented well, which microsoft seems to be putting a lot of effort into), but for someone who uses a desktop for a large part of the day (for both work and otherwise) I don't see Metro as viable.
And then I let her play with my WP7 Mango phone and her opinion completely turned around. A pretty good example of the contrast between user interface and user experience, in my book.
$5 says that when Windows 8 comes out, if you want to change your personal path, you still have to go Start | Computer | Properties | Advanced System Properties | Environmental Variables. And if you go to Advanced Appearance Settings to set a different title bar color for inactive windows, it will still be ignored by Aero.
Curious, why wouldn't that be the way you do it? How do you change your personal path on the iPad? You don't. In Metro you shoudln't be concerned with the personal path. You should only care in legacy mode. And in legacy mode you use Control Panel (or this other route you noted).
That's exactly my concern. That they'll slap on a Metro UI layer and leave the abhorrent system of UI kludges intact beneath.
Microsoft has more than enough engineers, PMs, etc. to solve this. But they're more interested in things like adding thin UI layers, reinventing data access for the nth time, and making a mediocre search engine. Maybe they need to form a committee to have a meeting about forming an initiative to consider this.
(I'm not just MS bashing for the sake of it; I use and like their products, I just see the company continuously avoiding tough decisions and doing rebranding/repackaging exercises that shaft their users)
Step one should just be to theme Windows7 with the metro look, and apply animations to complete it. Having the two world design is less than ideal and unfortunately "so Microsoft."