Microsoft Vista User Interface Guidelines Published

SEMW writes "Microsoft has published the preliminary Official User Interface Guidelines for Windows Vista. Highlights include Top 12 Rules for the Windows Vista User Experience — and the use of screenshots from Windows XP as examples of what not to do. The full guidelines are as yet incomplete, but what is there makes for interesting reading."

Comments

The Rules:

[iluvcapra]

(emphasized elaborations mine)

1. Use the Aero Theme and System Font (Segoe UI)
2. Use common controls and common dialogs
3. Use the standard window frame, use glass (transparency) judiciously
4. Use icons and graphics consistent with the Windows Vista style and quality
5. Use task dialogs for new or frequently used dialog boxes and error messages
6. Use Aero Wizards
7. Use Explorer-hosted, navigation-based user interfaces, provide a Back button
8. Use the standard Windows Search (have a little iTunes style search box in your window's corner when appropriate)
9. Use the Windows Vista tone in all UI text (use a professional writing style in you informative text)
10. Clean up the user interface
11. Use notifications judiciously
12. Reserve development time for "fit and finish"!

Re:Restart now?

[PygmySurfer]

They actually added something semi-useful to that dialog - now, you can select when it updates you again, up to 4 hours later. It also doesn't seem to eventually force you to reboot like the XP one.

Re:Thank You Microsoft!

[cbiffle]

Talking about reform, I find the most illogical thing of user interfaces is the menubar.. how do you exit? Go to "File". Where are the options? Under "Tools".. why can't somebody offer a totally new way of making the menu. Start with "Program", where you have "Options" and "About" (maybe "Help" too), then "Document" or "File", and then "Edit", etc.. We're so used to File -> Exit that we stop thinking how illogical such a construct is... exit the file?

It may be worth noting that you've just described the current Mac OS X menubar layout.

Can't blame you; I think it makes more sense too. In fact, most of the Vista guide seems to have similar aspirations (which is my way of recognizing that, even though it looks like a complete rip, it may not be).

A funny Vista UI picture.

[master_p]

I found this:

http://www.marcorolandi.com/imgs/just4fun.jpg

I don't know if the meaning of word 'consistency' has been changed lately...do you?

Still, they make the same error

[tetrode]

Their common dialog box is still yes no cancel. While gnome and kde (i think) has adopted a different and in my opinion far better strategy.

People are afraid of doing things wrong. Especially at a computer, as they have learned that a computer is *VERY* unforgiving. Turn it off, and your document isn't saved, you get chkdsk errors, your operating system does not start, you have to pay your local guru big bucks or a bottle of wine to keep the damn thing running. Turn the TV off and on again and it all works. You need to treat the computer with respect. So you say (err - click) yes to it - all of the time.

Do you want to save the document: Yes
Do you want do delete the folder: Yes (o shit)
Do you want to uninstall this application: Yes (where were these disks again)
Do you want to format this disk: Yes

Now, look at gnome. That interface is talking to you in a quite different way. When you close gedit (the notepad equivalent) without saving, it will tell you

          Do you want to save the document 'xyz'
          If you don't save it, your changes of the last n seconds will be lost

          [Don't Save] [Cancel] [Save]

Now that is informative, and i really have to make a meaningful choice. I need to choose between Save and Don't Save. Or I pick cancel which will surely take me back to the previous state.

Much better than the windows common control, which has been devised in Windows 2.0 (I kid you not) and still in Windows fscking Vista, noone has had the courage to reread 'About Face' and reshape it.

Sigh

Mark

Re:Thank You Microsoft!

[SEMW]

>In Windows, the option to close the application itself is found, as the parent noted, inside the file menu.

Nope; in Windows, the option to close the application itself is found on the big red X at the top right of the application window. The fact that Microsoft also kept the option in the File menu as a backwards compatibility concession to people who'd been closing applications that way before Windows existed is irrelevant. Same as the keyboard shortcut for paste; when they made ctrl+v the shortcut in Word for Windows, they also kept the ability to use shift+ins as a concession to people who were used to using the latter in Wordperfect.