Windows 8 Consumer Preview: What’s Changed?
As I have spent a few weeks using Windows 8 on both my netbook and my main desktop computer I thought it would be a good idea to go over what has changed.
The biggest and most noticeable change coming from previous Windows versions is that of the new ‘Metro’ Windows Runtime (WinRT) environment. From my understanding this is not merely a touch-based shell that sits on top of Windows but rather a core level environment that provides four new distinct paradigms for Windows users: a fullscreen immersive app experience, side-by-side app snapping, pinned live tiles and a touch-centric metro-inspired user interface.
The Start Screen (Metro)
By grouping the live tiles and changing certain properties like tile size and position I was able to organise my start screen to look more uniform and clean by de-cluttering the unnecessary apps that plagued the start screen upon first install. As you can see you are able to pin not only metro apps but legacy shortcuts as well. (each time you install a legacy app the shortcuts appear at the end of the start screen just like the start menu)
More Settings (Metro)
This is the new settings page where users can customise and control certain new features which are provided in Windows 8 such as the lock screen which appears when you are aren’t logged into Windows as well as changing your theme which consists of a background pattern and a selection of fixed colour variants.
One of the great benifits of using Windows 8 is that it is integrated with Microsoft’s cloud storage solution SkyDrive, which means that if you are logged into Windows using a Microsoft ID (such as a Live account) all your apps, app settings and legacy explorer configurations are saved to the cloud which will enable you to sync them to multiple devices. So far this seems to work well and syncing is surprisingly fast.
Desktop (Legacy)
What is now known as the legacy desktop environment is essentially Windows 7, so little has changed but that is not necessarily a bad thing as Windows 7 is still a very solid OS. However one of the main differences you will instantly notice is that Windows Explorer not only looks different but that file management performance has greatly improved.
The explorer ribbon in it’s current implementation is still quite bad, though I must confess as a power-user one feature I do like is the ability to pin any explorer option found in the ribbon to the ‘Quick Access Toolbar’ which is displayed on the Aero glass part of the window. For me every folder needs to be displayed and structured a certain way i.e: grouping files by file-type and then sorting by date modified or name, so I have pinned the ‘View’ and ‘Group by’ options so now I can quickly change the folder properties a lot more easily.
Compact Windows explorer list view
This may or may not be a new feature but is something I came across. If you resize a window right down to it’s smallest width the navigation pane disappears so that you are left with a list of files with the folder. This is great because if you do what I do and ‘hide file names’ for photos in a large photoset for example, what you are left with is a nice orderly list of photos with no extra chrome which makes viewing files much cleaner. Another great option for viewing items in this compact list view is ‘Content’ which you can see in the photo above. This would be also be a nice way to view files if you are multitasking and don’t want to take up a lot of screen space if say you’re using a netbook, just snap the folder to the side where you can scroll through the list of files or photos without cluttering the desktop space with unnecessary explorer chrome.
Detailed Pane moved
Another change to explorer which I particularly like is that the detailed pane is no longer at the bottom of the window which I always found to take up too much space but instead is now placed in the same position as where the preview pane exists, to the right side of the window. For power-users this will be useful, especially for photographers as the camera’s EXIF data is more prominently displayed.
Side-by-side Multitasking (Dual-Metro View)
Much like the snap function in Windows 7 (although this works differently) Windows 8 allows users to snap apps to either side of the screen for multitasking purposes. Essentially developers provide two layouts for their apps, one for fullscreen viewing and another for viewing in snapped mode. In the screenshot above I have opened to the left the Windows Store where I am viewing an app and to the right I have snapped another metro app which is Music - which by the way is poorly designed and thought out to the extent that the app is rendered useless.
Side-by-side Multitasking (Legacy/Metro View)
You can also use the legacy desktop while viewing a metro app. In this instance I am showing Adobe Photoshop running beside the People app displaying recent tweets from The Verge. (Unfortunately there are no social networking apps in the store as of yet but in a ideal situation when more apps are available I would have a metro version of Twitter or a news feed snapped to the side)
So what do I make of Windows 8 Consumer Preview? It is hard to say right now, as a designer I feel compelled to point out all the UX inconsistencies (which I will be doing in a later article) but I do realise that this is only a beta release and that I am assuming many features are yet to be revealed so I am reserving complete judgement till later builds are made available.
The main aspect that will determine if Windows 8 is a success on an UX level is if Microsoft is able to offer a great selection of extremely high quality apps that are not generic in the sense that apps do not merely stick to the default layout and controls (which so far all Windows 8 apps have done) but that they should make use of the APIs to create some innovative and creative interactive experience. Judging by what I have seen so far with Windows Phone and it’s marketplace I am not so optimistic. Will HTML5 be enough to convince developers to build these high quality apps? I’m not so sure.
I love the Metro feel of this site. “The Noun Project collects, organizes and adds to the highly recognizable symbols that form the world’s visual language, so we may share them in a fun and meaningful way.” via Tom Jensen
My Personalised Windows 8 Start Screen
After reading Paul Thurrott’s article Microsoft Hits One Out Of The Park With Windows 8 Start Screen and saw he created a personalised mockup of what his start screen may look like, I felt compelled to do the same in order to communicate just how dramatically different the UI is in terms of any other OS.
Try it out for yourself. Download the original image here then if you want edit it in a photo editing program like Photoshop. Next open it up in Windows Photo Viewer and click the ‘slideshow button’ to view it fullscreen.
I have viewed it on my 1080p HD monitor, 50” plasma TV and a netbook and the interface looks much more appealing and attractive than your standard desktop shell. I can only imagine how amazing it will look and feel on a tablet device. :-)
* If you would like to use my Photoshop document as a template, use the ask form on my blog here remembering to provide me your email address.
Microsoft Reveals Slick Windows 8 User Interface
Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky and Julie Larson-Green showed off the much anticipated Windows 8 operating system for the first time at the AllThingsD9 conference on Wednesday.
New Apps and Seamless Experience
Windows 8 will support two application types: Classic ‘legacy’ applications that are backwards compatible and a new form of HTML5/Javascript app that takes full advantage of the fullscreen UI and touch capabilities. Both types of apps can run simultaneously side-by-side and snap and resize into place. This means the consumer will be given the freedom to cater their experience based on what device they use and how they use Windows. Do they want an immersive tablet experience, a slate-based experience for the enterprise or both?
Reimagining of Windows
“We’ve brought all the things you know and love about Windows Phone into Windows 8”
The design is based mainly on Windows Phone with it’s clean tile-based Metro UI but also draws inspiration from previous products such as Zune and Media Center. Windows 8 features a sleek hidden menubar called ‘EdgeUI’ on the right containing shortcuts to what seem to be global functions. Other features include the ability to swipe seamlessly across the screen to navigate through running applications (this approach seems much more fluid than your average task/app switcher) and an on-screen keyboard as seen on Windows Phone but surprisingly can also display a split-keyboard for thumb typing on a tablet or slate device.
In terms of what they have shown us so far, there is still a lot that has gone unanswered but they said all will be revealed in September at Microsoft’s developer conference named ‘BUILD’.
Watch the Full coverage here
Edit: More information surfaced at the Computex conference in Taipei (video here) that the two swipe functions (EdgeUI and the app switcher) were designed for tablets and slates in mind so the user could navigate and control most things with just their thumbs.
