Discussions

@wastingtimewithforums: Sorry, I'm still skeptical Thurrott/Foley's sources know what is really going on. Until we see how the overall shell user model is (or isn't) changing it's hard to assess what they are actually talking about and what it means in context. I do think keeping the current model as is and putting a start button, menu, whatever, on top of it would be completely nonsensical.

Personally I think the current model is the correct one and they should just persist with it and flesh it out (apps, settings, cross-app scenarios, better desktop use of things like charms, etc.) but I'm trying to keep an open mind about any new model they do introduce.

This is really awful reporting. The only confirmation they have is that the next version of Windows will be changing ... something (like every version of Windows always has) and that the changes will be influenced by feedback about the previous version (like the changes in every version of Windows always have been). That's apparently enough to send the writer off into flights of fancy about "the biggest product U-turn since ..."

I'm definitely interested to see what's behind the locked down Blue UI elements. With luck, whatever it is will be something fresher and more interesting than the boring rumors and speculation we see in the press.

More interesting to me is that they will apparently be officially unveiling Blue to some extent over the next couple of weeks, before Build.

Huh, why? Seems to make a lot of sense to me - in keeping track of product release histories I have to both know the version number and associate it with when it was released, but if the date is just used to indicate the version I only have to remember one thing.

is the assumption here that this rumored new service will be specifically providing the"desktop" in Win8 user model terms? I think it's more likely to men the entire Windows experience, but who knows.

Don't call it Metro, just call it Good Design

Am I saying everything should be "flat"? Oh jeez I hate that term. If you ever hire a designer, developer or read an article with the words Flat Design in their title, just runaway, run to the mountains, because that person doesn't understand that this isn't about being flat, it's not a style... Styles come and go, like fashion styles... They are hot now, they are dead in two years. The thing Microsoft and now Apple (thank you Ive), and a huge number of UX and UI design agencies are trying to do is to apply the design principles of Modernism. Modernism, you know? The philosophical, fine arts, architecture, cinematographic movement that started in the early 20th century. Bauhaus, Swiss design, International style, Helvetica and geniuses like Massimo Vignelli, Walter Gropius, Mies Van der Rohe, Richard Meier, Dieter Rams, Luis Barragan, Stanley Kubrick and even Jonathan Ive from Apple are just some of the lighthouses and masterminds that spent a century exploring the same things that today's designers are exploring. How to convey stories, and enable user experiences. We simply happen to have a different medium, it's not oil or acrylic, nor brick and mortar, but pixels. Those tiny little sparks of light that we as designers carefully arrange and order. That's our medium, plus the input mechanisms which these days we have plenty. So when someone says 'flat' then the conversation automatically degrades to talking about styles or fashions instead of a timeless movement like Modernism. Read more about the guys I mentioned above, read more about Modernism, the movement, not the style.

Great article.

Thanks for posting this. I've enjoyed Bret's stuff for a long time.

I like the responsive design on mscom, but it seems to be about the only Microsoft site that has adopted that so far.

BTW different people seem to have different ideas of what "responsive web design" means, so to clarify - to me it means "usable in snap view"

Take care of yourself!

I hope they improve discoverability for the other corner hotspots, like add a subtle flash or something. Right now, I think they even violate their own design principles, specifically the "stuff doesn't just appear, it comes from someplace and goes someplace" - when you go to the start screen, the foreground app vanishes in a fade transition...it should fly to the left hand side to indicate that you can switch to it from there!

That's actually exactly how it worked in DP. You're right that it makes more sense conceptually, but unfortunately it was just too heavy an animation to see over and over again, so between providing a more coherent animation scheme and not giving people headaches they chose the latter.