Windows 8 RC To Get Flatter Explorer UI, Other Changes

[jakem1]

Yes, of course, this all comes down to personal taste so there's no real right or wrong. Gradients have been a standard feature of most UIs for the past decade now which is why I find them dated - I'm tired off that fake 3D look and personally think Metro is a refreshing alternative. Gradients serve no useful purpose so there's no real need to hang on to what really just amounts to a legacy UI trick.

Translating Metro to the business of your typical desktop will not be simple and I think Microsoft have their work cut out for them. There are some great examples (the Zune client for example) that use a flatter UI to great effect but the changes to the latest version of Visual Studio are not quite as successful IMO. I'm optimistic about the next version of Office but, as everyone knows, the Office team always do their own thing so we can't expect too much of that to translate to Windows in general.

The biggest challenge for Microsoft is to produce great examples and inspire 3rd-party ISVs to release updates to their software that works well with a flatter Windows 8 desktop environment. It's important to get this right because the desktop environment needs to work visually with the Metro environment to make the transition between the two less jarring than it currently is for some people.

[Eric Veteran]

Yes, of course, this all comes down to personal taste so there's no real right or wrong. Gradients have been a standard feature of most UIs for the past decade now which is why I find them dated - I'm tired off that fake 3D look and personally think Metro is a refreshing alternative. Gradients serve no useful purpose so there's no real need to hang on to what really just amounts to a legacy UI trick.

Translating Metro to the business of your typical desktop will not be simple and I think Microsoft have their work cut out for them. There are some great examples (the Zune client for example) that use a flatter UI to great effect but the changes to the latest version of Visual Studio are not quite as successful IMO. I'm optimistic about the next version of Office but, as everyone knows, the Office team always do their own thing so we can't expect too much of that to translate to Windows in general.

The biggest challenge for Microsoft is to produce great examples and inspire 3rd-party ISVs to release updates to their software that works well with a flatter Windows 8 desktop environment. It's important to get this right because the desktop environment needs to work visually with the Metro environment to make the transition between the two less jarring than it currently is for some people.

I don't have a problem with the VS icons being monochrome, but they don't really exemplify what they do very well yet. Three concentric squares == Show All Files? Not to me. :p

[theyarecomingforyou]

Firstly, with regards to busy. Really?? I opened the start menu simply to show the Windows theme I was using. Else, with regards to the browser, I absolutely don't see how it is busy.

It's obviously more busy than the normal theme, which was the point being made. The text isn't as legible, the buttons are overly colourful and cartoony, the gradients are more distracting than flat colours, etc. I use Chrome as my default browser because it is incredibly minimal and the UI is very clean and subtle.

On a side note, it seems that modern computing is all about removal of functions. Remove this, remove that, and people call it progress. Remove gradients! Remove start button (note I did not say start menu, but I don't understand why the start button has to go)! Remove big icons and replace it with flat tiles of one color and a tiny icon in the center (could have made tiles from pinned desktop software look much nicer than the current implementation, hopefully, by RC or RTM)! Remove all visual cues!

I would counter that by saying that gradients, drop-shadows and fake depth were only added because they could. Microsoft even admitted that with regards to the Windows logo. With Windows 8 Microsoft is trying to go back to basics, to clean up the interface and make it more modern. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with gradients but that doesn't mean they're appropriate everywhere. It's like the 90s and early 00s where every website seemed to use bright colours, flashing images and animations simply because they could, with MySpace being one of the websites that fell into that trap - that period is now over and has been replaced with simple, clean and effective layout exemplified by websites like Facebook and Aol.

The gradients used in Windows just don't contribute anything and negatively impact legibility. They don't really bother me but I have to say that I think flat colours look a lot better.

[bandit_liberty_rumble]

I find it strange that anyone could find the lack of drop shadows on inactive windows to be "very infuriating". Afterall, the word infuriating means "to make furious", which is defined as "full of or characterized by extreme anger; raging".

It seems to me you're the one bringing the word 'infuriating' into this discussion. :huh:

Let's just say I disagree on the rest of your post.

[Zain Adeel]

im not impressed with just FLATTER..

redo it.

its not hard.

at all..

I know they just caring about the old users who are going to scream for changing AERO.. but AERO needs to go.

its funny when im in desktop mode and theres a notification or alert or error thingy. and a metro screen pops up over it. it makes me feel like im in some kind of a timemachine and using the desktop is like going back in the past. A user should feel the same everywhere. Or if they really wana make it modular. Then strip startscreen from the charm bars. and make everything modular.

stick to a single formula. It can be done. It wont look bad. Consistent Design all over the OS would get my vote even if the eyecandy is half as much as seen in Aero.

[ATLien_0]

I really like using the ribbon in office and now Windows 8. I still feel though the UI is mismatched in explorer. To me the ribbon blends fine when minimized, however when its maximized The address bar or ribbon just feels out of place. I don't know if its the screen real estate or if its just too much there. But It almost reminds me of when an IE window is over cluttered with extra toolbars.

[Zain Adeel]

also a very very neat change I noticed in IE10 desktop that I haven't read anybody point out.

Its that when u open many tabs.. and are closing them. In the IE9 the tabs would shift sizes as we know. And the close button changes places when the size changes. But in this.. if u have many windows open and u start closing at the right side the close button would stay at that place where u last pressed it even if there is only one tab.. and it stays there till u keep the mouse there and will resize if u move the mouse away.

[Mike Frett]

Problem?

Yeah, you know why? It's Microsoft and eventually they will remove the ability to hide (customize) that. The reason? They will claim their research suggests people never hide it :rolleyes:

Time to start speaking UP people and stop kissing a**.

[theyarecomingforyou]

It seems to me you're the one bringing the word 'infuriating' into this discussion. :huh:

Sorry, long day. I just misread it. :blush:

I really like using the ribbon in office and now Windows 8. I still feel though the UI is mismatched in explorer. To me the ribbon blends fine when minimized, however when its maximized The address bar or ribbon just feels out of place. I don't know if its the screen real estate or if its just too much there. But It almost reminds me of when an IE window is over cluttered with extra toolbars.

Yeah, same. It's not that the ribbon in Explorer is bad, just that it doesn't really benefit from it. And visually I don't think it's as compelling as the Office ribbon either. It also seems strange that it is disabled by default, as it seems it would be most useful to less experienced users - anyone that's experienced can just minimise it if they don't want it, whereas the opposite isn't true for inexperienced users (they'll likely struggle to find the button to expand it). Regardless, Explorer works great with it minimised - as is default - so it's fine for me.

[Shokus]

It's obviously more busy than the normal theme, which was the point being made. The text isn't as legible, the buttons are overly colourful and cartoony, the gradients are more distracting than flat colours, etc. I use Chrome as my default browser because it is incredibly minimal and the UI is very clean and subtle.

It is slightly more busy than the normal theme, but I disagree that it is busy per se. Easily 90% of the site is webpage content, while the borders are lined in black which de-emphasizes the sides to focus on the contents. The text is less legible, yes, but that's the whole point when I don't use it too often! But I see it clearly enough to be able to move my mouse to the bar, on which it will light up on mouse-over, to be easily visible. Buttons are overly colourful and cartoony, which is your personal taste, and which I somewhat agree, but still acceptable in my book, and is much preferable to flat 2-colour boring icons that I can whip up in paint in 5 mins. Gradients distracting? Seriously? I did agree as mentioned above it is a little abrupt, but black to grey is distracting? Oh dear... Chrome is a mighty fine browser.

I would counter that by saying that gradients, drop-shadows and fake depth were only added because they could. Microsoft even admitted that with regards to the Windows logo. With Windows 8 Microsoft is trying to go back to basics, to clean up the interface and make it more modern. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with gradients but that doesn't mean they're appropriate everywhere. It's like the 90s and early 00s where every website seemed to use bright colours, flashing images and animations simply because they could, with MySpace being one of the websites that fell into that trap - that period is now over and has been replaced with simple, clean and effective layout exemplified by websites like Facebook and Aol.

The gradients used in Windows just don't contribute anything and negatively impact legibility. They don't really bother me but I have to say that I think flat colours look a lot better.

What you call fake depth, I call depth perception. I don't mind so much if they remove it from non-focused windows, but they had better keep it for the active window, or else it is easily a step backwards and we are back to Windows 3.x (+overlapping windows). I agree that MS is "going back to the basics", which is interpreted as "let's go back to ancient era". Further "progress" will simply be even more basic and removal of all colours, leaving black and white and maaaaaybe if they are feeling generous, grey. I do agree with overly done animations, flashing ridiculous stuff found on the web that needs to go, but I strongly disagree that we should swing to the other extreme. Some opinions of overly done animations (IMO) include OSX's "genie into the bottle" animation on minimizing windows (a simple shrinking window to where it is minimized to is pretty functional and sufficient) and bouncing icons (!!!) (though I somewhat dislike the flashing yellow/orange icons in the taskbar too when an app is calling for attention, it's a little too obnoxious). Vista had a little too much glassy effects in Windows Explorer chrome, but Windows 7 balanced it out neatly.

[George P Global Moderator]

One thing to keep in mind for those who want even more UI changes on the desktop, MS can't really jump in yet and redo it all in some big way like it's done with the start screen because, specially for the enterprise, there will be users who have Win8 and Win7 systems together in the same environment. They need to keep a level of familiarity to the UI while slowly bring in changes. I honestly don't expect to see any "big" desktop UI redos until Windows 9 unless MS wants to sneak in small changes in service packs from now on.

That's also a possibility, seeing how Windows 8 is also aimed at mobile devices more and not just traditional desktops then we could see feature/UI tweaks more in service packs compared to just bug fixes. Still for those, like me, who want to see the desktop and start screen merge better, or however you want to put it, honestly that's probably not going to fully happen till Win9 or even 10 depending on how slow they want to take things.

[Dot Matrix]

More flat UI elements. Flat buttons and the flat scrollbar has found its way to Explorer.

Looks awesome. I can't wait for someone to turn this into a Win7 theme.

[Raa]

Yuk.

[Elliott]

More flat UI elements. Flat buttons and the flat scrollbar has found its way to Explorer.

Looks gross.

[BumbleBritches57]

Why don't they move the address bad and back/forward buttons to next to the view tab? Because they're idiots, that's right.

[Prymitywista]

Aww, and why they still put little icon on the left side of the border? And when we're talking about border, why they still keep border around whole window, upper side only should be enough. Border with the same color as color inside window could make overall looks better imho.

[George P Global Moderator]

I don't really care if a window has a border all around it or not, you can still make it thinner, but the idea behind it is a valid one. MS has it to make it easier to point to any area of that border and drag the window bigger etc. Without a border you lose that direct visual target that you have now when you want to do that.

The little icon to the left of the title bar, well, that's just another one of those visual marks to help people quickly place a window on the desktop to it's counterpart down on the taskbar without the need for text. Of course it's not really needed but honestly, it's like nitpicking the UI now if something that minor seems to be a problem for people.

[DarkyDan]

May aswell go the whole hog. In some respects it looks neat, in some it looks boring.

It's obvious they are optimising for smaller screens, given the multitude of laptops/tablets about the place. it would be nice if they make life easier for people with large screen resolutions or multiple screens but by NOT doing so they are only alienating a very small percentage of the market.

[Mazhar]

It looks good though. Hope they make the UI even more better throughout Windows 8.

[crush2k7]

This is full of inconsistencies, they have managed to convince me to fully migrate to the Apple ecosistem with this ugly hybridization of the UIs. I'm just tired of Windows letting me down. Windows 7 was good but not great, Leopard OS X was better. And i've been using Windows since '95. The GDI+ display model of Windows is only better than OSX's for the pipelining and driver model of the graphics card, and that is for games, because the rest is just better on a OS X ecosistem.

Microsoft, please hire some designers and do a complete redesign, not a partial one as you ALWAYS do. I apreciate the back-end efforts, but the front-end is a piece of cr*p. Even Ubuntu with its development ecosistem does a better job of integration and front-end consistency with the UI and applications.

Windows 8 means the death of my PC experience.

-What a ride!

[Dot Matrix]

@ Crush2k7

Not sure I get why you're upset. There are two different UIs for two different environments. They can't go around changing the desktop too much at one time without incurring the wrath of the nerds like they did with Metro. Change too much at one time, and training costs go up.

[Dot Matrix]

To me, this flatter UI represents a nice, clutter free workspace, with minimal distractions. I can see why it would be "boring" for some, but to me gradients are a hit or miss feature that can become quite "busy" and distracting, really quickly. Just go to DeviantArt and you'll see some pretty ugly gradient based themes floating around that make me wonder how people can put up with so much nonsense on their screen.

Microsoft seems to be following the best rule of thumb for UI design: Keep it simple, stupid.

[crush2k7]

@ Crush2k7

Not sure I get why you're upset. There are two different UIs for two different environments. They can't go around changing the desktop too much at one time without incurring the wrath of the nerds like they did with Metro. Change too much at one time, and training costs go up.

While I do understand your statement from a cost point of view and corporate business point of view, I would have kept and improved upon Windows 7 which wast good for the Desktop production enviroment and develop the ARM version with the Metro UI in mind, on the tablet. Why put "finger precision" on a production terminal that has a mouse with a cursor that can get you 1x1 pixel precision? And mixing two concepts that have nothing in common on the same machine.... It's like using two operationg systems at the same time. Metro is good for finger precision. The conceptual model vs the mind model of the UI in Windows 8, that intuitively describes how you work on the machine and expect it to behave is just wrong from that point of view. Shadow, constrast and color are poorly used in what will became the "next" version of Windows. (And let me tell you, I have my share of succes in the IT design and engineering industry. No more to add on that line.)

[crush2k7]

To me, this flatter UI represents a nice, clutter free workspace, with minimal distractions. I can see why it would be "boring" for some, but to me gradients are a hit or miss feature that can become quite "busy" and distracting, really quickly. Just go to DeviantArt and you'll see some pretty ugly gradient based themes floating around that make me wonder how people can put up with so much nonsense on their screen.

Microsoft seems to be following the best rule of thumb for UI design: Keep it simple, stupid.

And yes, Metro UI is stupid simple from a design point of view. but the workflow suffers a lot from it, not because it is "stupid simple", but because it's poorly integrated on desktop terminal, especially alonside Aero. These two designs have nothing in common, and the best way to keep legacy compatibility is to improve the latter, and design the "post PC" device with something fresh...like Metro UI. With that I would agree a lot! But with 8..it's just a waste of good money and time.

[crush2k7]

@ Crush2k7

Not sure I get why you're upset. There are two different UIs for two different environments. They can't go around changing the desktop too much at one time without incurring the wrath of the nerds like they did with Metro. Change too much at one time, and training costs go up.

And I'm upset because most likely it's a high level decision for Metro and Aero to go on the same OS. No good designer will chose to make that decision. It looks forced and if you ask me, a little desperate (as far as timeline and money go together). It just feels that the need to compete with Apple was driven by economics and not passion for quality as far as the UI and integration is concerned, the back end is almost rock-solid for Windows 8 especially because Intel AMD and Nvidia develop for it.