Microsoft published a video showing details about the interface details of Windows 8. It's 90 minutes long but definitely worth watching since Windows 8 is still going to be a major player on computers.
The video is too full with interesting things. So I am going to highlight only a few remarkable things. At the bottom you will find my personal notes which I took while watching the video. You might be interested in them too.
A Few Remarks
Microsoft has a great history of backward compatibility. With Windows 8, there will be a big difference: you will have «old style» programs (they did not use that term though) and there will be «Metro style» apps. The latter are Microsofts version of iOS or Android: the main purpose for Metro style apps is consuming data and not generating. Touch based devices will be the future - at least they say so.
Fun part: they show a conversion of a RSS program interface to a Metro style interface. That reminds me of this funny video you might already know.
I personally do not think that every device will be used with a touch interface. Working 8+ hours a day with a tablet will cause heavy neck pain. And touch interface displays which are in front of you will cause arm fatigue.
The only chance of overcoming this would be a touch sensitive device that is separated from your display like in this cool video. But there might be something in the queue because Microsoft seems to have adopted many things related to window management from that very same video!
Most things of this new Metro style interface I really do like! Content seems to be important and this is quite a change for Microsoft.
The best thing that is shown? To me it is the touch language. Other touch based operating systems like iOS and Android suffer from the fact that users have to learn each and every app. There is hardly any knowledge or experience that can be transferred from one app to another one. There are no standards for how a button looks like and so forth. Microsoft seems to invest into a touch language to compensate as much as possible. I hope that this touch language paradigm will exceed the simple window management which is shown in the video.
Animations are important to Microsoft. This is not something new. But this time, animations (only) seem to support the user experience like Apple always implemented. This is new.
Fun fact: the Jensen said that everything which is not using those new animations is crap. And the old style Windows interface never used such animations. So everything from Microsoft so far is crap - along to Microsoft :-)
Sharing will be fun with Windows 8 - just like with Android. Searching offers new possibilities which I do like.
Many things are very clever in Windows 8. But one thing still makes me think: the programmers are still the same old lame programmers that did very bad user interfaces so far. Windows 8 need programmers where the details are important. Where the content is the main focus. Where little things enhance the user experiments. And I am not sure, if current Windows programmers are about to change that radically. Many things are done by the system and by coding templates of Visual Studio. But programmer still are able to «break» the great Metro style user experience by producing mediocre Metro apps.
But there is a new hope for the Microsoft platform to finally get a good user experience!
Notes
There are many (rough) time stamps so that you can jump to interesting sequences directly.
- 2 kind of apps:
- «old style» 5:02
- Metro style 5:21
- reduced 15:30
- focus on content 15:30
- example conversion of RSS app 20:40!
- in future every screen will have touch
- non-touch screens will be like punch cards now
- templates 7:45
- Photoshop 9:00
- mouse and keyboard are best for pointing and fast text entering 9:55!
- every pixel for the app, the content 10:45
- the edge 12:40
- left=back 14:21
- right = charms 14:21
- start
- search
- share
- …
- top=bottom=app menu 14:35
- switching apps, arrange app-windows 13:37
- how people are holding slates 17:07
- neck pain?
- derived heat maps 18:00, 18:58!
- on-screen keyboard(s) 20:09
- fast and fluid 22:56
- performance and touch 23:55
- fluid animation 25:00
- fun: w/o animation = "crap!" 26:12
- … like everything up to date from Microsoft?
- fun: w/o animation = "crap!" 26:12
- language for touch! 27:25
- goals 29:20!
- language 30:35!
- swipe and select 30:50
- semantic zoom 33:26
- cool example with schedule 35:55
- touch first - ignore mouse&keyboard? 36:23
- example usage of mouse 38:00
- top/bottom-swipe = secondary click 38:40
- example usage of mouse 38:00
- scaling apps from <10 inch to >28 inch 40:02
- SVG on Microsoft systems? 42:18
- use vectors!
- three distinct sizes: 100% 140% 180% for now
- different views 44:00
- 1024x768 minimum view!
- widescreen
- snap view - not optional 47:10
- fully functional view!
- portrait
- SVG on Microsoft systems? 42:18
- "use the right contracts" 49:45
- glue that bind the apps together
- examples: share , search, picker
- share 51:20
- example 52:05
- should you implement share? 54:30
- every app should be a source
- search 55:26
- fun: best representation for an app: progress bar 57:29
- implement for browsing or creating content 59:40
- implement references
- probably not for games, utilities, apps with "find in doc" functionality such as PDF reader
- picker 1:00:40
- content from one app to another
- I do think its the new clipboard for choosing content
- "invest i a great tile" 1:05:11
- "icons are yesterdays way of representing apps" 1:06:05
- two sizes, the big one is optional 1:08:35
- fun: tile does not react, switching computer, killing task 1:11:00
- secondary tiles for content
- "Windows is alive with activity" 1:14:30
- fun: "alive with activity" is not appropriate 1:15:00
- live tiles 1:15:45
- no folders but groups 1:17:02
- folders lock away things, it's hard to name folders 1:17:20
- do not display ads on tiles 1:19:28
- notifications 1:20:00
- no special junk drawer with missed notifications! 1:20:35
- use updated tile text instead!
- dismiss by moving away
- there is a system wide off button for notifications! 1:21:30
- most apps should be silent 1:21:55
- live tiles and notifications use the same infrastructure 1:22:40
- local, scheduled and push updates 1:23:10
- no special junk drawer with missed notifications! 1:20:35
- "Roam to the cloud" 1:24:00
- apps feel like always running 1:24:30
- session management for apps(?)
- you should never have to replay a level on any device 1:25:00
- settings are shared through the cloud 1:27:00
- system and app settings share space 1:27:30
- process lifetime 1:28:15
- preserve state, do not require save!
- apps feel like always running 1:24:30
- "embrace metro principles" 1:30:10
- pride in craftsmanship
- be fast and fluid
- authentically digital
- do more with less
- win as one
- others: 1:31:40
- have a great idea
- be bug-free
- have interesting content