Windows 8 designers are blind.

By SubZenit
in Microsoft (Windows)

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Grand Master

+Frank B. Subscriber²

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I don't see what the problem is here. You can find some these so called "inconsistencies" in windows 7 too.

<images snipped>

The problem is that the inconsistencies have been plaguing Windows since the 3.x days and should have been eliminated by now. How hard can it be to hire decent graphics designers and themers?

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Dot Matrix

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One of the problems with Microsoft is the lack of UI consistency across product teams. Take a look at the following screenshot:

capture.png

Four MS programs, four ever so slightly different UIs. How hard can it be to design a consistent HIG for Windows and all first-party applications, and force the various units within Microsoft to adhere to it?

Few things here, while I agree the apps need to look the same, I have to point out that VS 2012 and Office share enough similarities that trying to compare the two is inconsequential. Explorer, however, should have been altered to match. Kinda disappointed in that. Notepad, though, is an app so ancient, it's just excess baggage at this point. It should be stripped out in favor of Wordpad, which HAS been updated with the Ribbon UI. It wouldn't take much work to match it up with the rest.

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eddman

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The problem is that the inconsistencies have been plaguing Windows since the 3.x days and should have been eliminated by now. How hard can it be to hire decent graphics designers and themers?

I don't know. Didn't even notice them until I saw this thread, and frankly, I'm not bothered at all. I'm sure that applies to a huge majority of users too.

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Sekyal

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While I agree these are mistakes in the UI and should have been fixed. I believe though most people barely register, if at all, that there are some of the mistakes the OP referred to.

I suppose in the case of Wordpad not matching Word, for example, is due to being released at different times or it could be due to one being a freebie and the other being a paid program.

They are close enough that most people won't care.

I do find in Windows 8 that the theme for the desktop is not "Metro" enough. If they wanted to make it "Metro", they could have done a lot more.

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Grand Master

+Frank B. Subscriber²

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Few things here, while I agree the apps need to look the same, I have to point out that VS 2012 and Office share enough similarities that trying to compare the two is inconsequential. Explorer, however, should have been altered to match. Kinda disappointed in that. Notepad, though, is an app so ancient, it's just excess baggage at this point. It should be stripped out in favor of Wordpad, which HAS been updated with the Ribbon UI. It wouldn't take much work to match it up with the rest.

Office and VS 2012 are different enough to notice. Again: Microsoft need to use one consistent HIG and one well-designed UI tool kit for all their applications. It's ridiculous how with every new version of Windows/Office/Visual Studio there are inconsistencies.

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Dot Matrix

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Office and VS 2012 are different enough to notice.

Not really. The only difference is that one uses the Ribbon and one doesn't. I'm not sure why VS doesn't have the Ribbon yet, but they are utilizing the same UI guidelines and icon design. Office is also incomplete and expected to change before the finalized version comes out.

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Grand Master

+Frank B. Subscriber²

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Not really. The only difference is that one uses the Ribbon and one doesn't. I'm not sure why VS doesn't have the Ribbon yet, but they are utilizing the same UI guidelines and icon design. Office is also incomplete and expected to change before the finalized version comes out.

Look closely. Office uses a white window chrome whereas VS2012 uses a light grey one. The window buttons are ever so slightly different. The window title in VS is left aligned, whereas in Office it is centred. The differences may be small to you, to me they stand out.

I know Office 2013 isn't final yet - but given Microsoft's history of UI design I don't have many hopes for real improvements.

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Dot Matrix

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Look closely. Office uses a white window chrome whereas VS2012 uses a light grey one. The window buttons are ever so slightly different. The window title in VS is left aligned, whereas in Office it is centred. The differences may be small to you, to me they stand out.

I know Office 2013 isn't final yet - but given Microsoft's history of UI design I don't have many hopes for real improvements.

Yes there are differences, but nothing IMO to get hung up about, especially considering what they have done, and needed to do these past few years. They transformed Windows into a new OS, ported the code for both Windows and Office to ARM chips, and were busy insuring compatibility with older apps. Microsoft is a lot more consistent than they have been past years (Windows 7 is a mess of new, old, and ancient), but things take precedence over others when designing and coding.

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Stoffel

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Yes there are differences, but nothing IMO to get hung up about, especially considering what they have done, and needed to do these past few years. They transformed Windows into a new OS, ported the code for both Windows and Office to ARM chips, and were busy insuring compatibility with older apps. Microsoft is a lot more consistent than they have been past years (Windows 7 is a mess of new, old, and ancient), but things take precedence over others when designing and coding.

you might be right, but wouldn't it be nice if the desktop side of Win8, and all the desktop in house apps, including VS2012, SQL Server,... would have the same style.

I wouldn't mind if everything looked like the Office 2013 style.

That would make MS look so much more professional in my opinion

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Dot Matrix

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you might be right, but wouldn't it be nice if the desktop side of Win8, and all the desktop in house apps, including VS2012, SQL Server,... would have the same style.

I wouldn't mind if everything looked like the Office 2013 style.

That would make MS look so much more professional in my opinion

Don't get me wrong, I agree, and I think they're getting closer to doing that, it's just I think they've had their plates full these last few years with other things needing done first.

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Grand Master

Active.

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Microsoft is a lot more consistent than they have been past years

On the Metro side, yes. Windows overall? I don't see it.

(Windows 7 is a mess of new, old, and ancient)

And Windows 8 isn't ?!?!

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Jose_49

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Notepad, though, is an app so ancient, it's just excess baggage at this point. It should be stripped out in favor of Wordpad, which HAS been updated with the Ribbon UI. It wouldn't take much work to match it up with the rest.

No. Notepad should and must remain the lightest and fastest text editor out there on Windows.

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encarta

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We can describe the visual part of Windows 8 with one word. Clusterfu*k. This new RTM theme is disgusting and amateurish. Every single Windows 8 concept posted here on the forums is better than this crap. Desktop isn't going anywhere for the next 10-15 years at least, so I'm really hoping they'll make it pretty in Win9. MS should fire all designers and hire young people with great ideas.

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Noir Angel

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Notepad is still used by a lot of coders, there's no need to remove it from Windows. I'm sure if you're concerned about the 189 KB of disk space the executable consumes you could always come and join us in the 21st century.

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+Majesticmerc MVC

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No. Notepad should and must remain the lightest and fastest text editor out there on Windows.

Speaking as someone who deals with large text files on a daily basis, Lightest maybe, but fastest I could not disagree with you more. I definitely disagree with Dot Matrix saying it needs to be removed (Wordpad is not a good text editor), but there are definitely improvements to be made in the basic notepad when opening large text files, or dealing with non-native line endings. Basic things that every other text editor has had sorted for years.

It's also a good candidate for metro-ization too. Not necessarily needing a ribbon and the like, but it could certainly be simplified and modified to fit in with the rest of Windows 8 very trivially.

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Jose_49

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Couldn't they simply build a plain text mode into WordPad and merge the two?

Just no. Notepad just does its job more than right. It's supposed to produce text files which at most, can change their font.

No need for fancy UI to do that.

http://www.nytimes.c...k-002.html?_r=1

http://pc.net/helpce...epad_vs_wordpad

Edit:

@Majesticmerc

Just read your post, and yes, it actually could receive some changes :p.

But why it isn't the fastest?

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Defcon

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The millions of pages of blog posts on B8 about 'reimagining' Windows and the new 'Desktop experience' may claim different, but it is quite obvious 99% of the effort was on Metro/WinRT and the desktop was hacked together using whatever spare resources they could find, it is clearly a very distant afterthought.

I wish some of the designers of products like Zune/Metro were allowed to work on the desktop as well. In many ways desktop is worse than in Windows 7.

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Grand Master

+Majesticmerc MVC

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@Majesticmerc

Just read your post, and yes, it actually could receive some changes :p.

But why it isn't the fastest?

For small files it's fine, but as the files get larger it just keels over and dies. Conversely I've seen notepad++ open files several gigabytes in size without so much as pausing.

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anidais

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The millions of pages of blog posts on B8 about 'reimagining' Windows and the new 'Desktop experience' may claim different, but it is quite obvious 99% of the effort was on Metro/WinRT and the desktop was hacked together using whatever spare resources they could find, it is clearly a very distant afterthought.

This is what I think too. Don't get me wrong, I like the new desktop theme, but it could have used more polish.

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