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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."
Be polite, supportive, and encouraging. The user should never feel condescended to, blamed, or intimidated.
> examples of what not to do
Updates complete. Restart now?
What about now?
Now?
Now?
Now?
Just wanted to know if I should restart now?
What about now?
Are you ready to restart?
Shall I restart now?
Should I not restart later?
I think I should restart now.
Wouldn't it be good if I restarted now?
Who's up for a restart??
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
My thoughts:
Use the Aero Theme and System Font (Segoe UI)
Good, but obvious.
Use common controls and common dialogs
ibid
Use the standard window frame, use glass (transparency) judiciously
Good good. If MS keeps making such a big deal about transparent UI tho, silly developers are gonna use it everywhere.
Use icons and graphics consistent with the Windows Vista style and quality
Good. If you follow this suggestion closely enough, maybe we can convince the users at home that your application comes from Microsoft, too.
Use task dialogs for new or frequently used dialog boxes and error messages
Good.
Use Aero Wizards
If you're replacing a 97 Wizard, you should use an Aero wizard. If you're writing a new app, please do not use a wizard. They're obnoxious, and send the message: "We didn't know how to organize your options in any sort of logical way, so here's a powerpoint that lets you fill in the blanks, masquearding as a UI."
Use Explorer-hosted, navigation-based user interfaces, provide a Back button
In short: Consider making programs that aren't web browsers behave like web browsers, since people use those alot. This is interesting, but at some point you have to explain the difference between the "Back" button and the "Undo" button, and you might just end up making your program into a wizard
Use the standard Windows Search (have a little iTunes style search box in your window's corner when appropriate)
A total dig on my part, and I apologize, but that's basically what they're saying. Apple makes the same recommendation, and give a very slick API for making it work. So good suggestion.
Use the Windows Vista tone in all UI text (use a professional writing style in you informative text)
From Microsofts mouth to ghod's ears.
Clean up the user interface
On their page they list all kinds of things you can do to make your program more ergonomic, but they put it at the end of the list, and phrase it in such a way as to suggest that it should be something you do at the end of development, as opposed to at the beginning, when you're designing your windows on a whiteboard. "Organize your command (sic) into a simple, predictable, and easy to find presentation" is something you do before you start writing code- it is not something you do while "cleaning up".
Use notifications judiciously
Or not at all. The list makes no suggestion about keeping your damn icons out of the systray.
Reserve development time for "fit and finish"!
Fit and Finish has quickly become my least favorite phrase. Sorry, just snarky, I agree with this point. But I would say "Hire a designer" as opposed to "reserve development time", mainly because it will allow collaboration with someone who always has their eyes on the UI and can give the developers continual feedback on how their code is totally rocking for the user ... experience, or totally deviating from reality.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
The first - the design guidelines (10 out of the 12 listed) are focused on appearance rather than on functionality. Making sure your icons look great (#4) comes long before producing a clean interface (#10).
The second is that this document carries a severe undertone of "make sure your app only works on Vista, and looks out of place on anything other than Aero". The entire document keeps saying "use Vista only API whenever you can" and "visually design the application to look out of place when not using the Vista UI" (with a few exceptions).
I guess this is how MS are trying to fight the competition formed by previous OSes being good enough. They try to make sure new applications don't work on them any more.
Shachar
One of the worst misfeatures of Windows (and its developer community) is the retarded design of dialogs. AFAIK the pre-Vista API has a bunch a simple functions to do Yes/No and Ok/Cancel dialogs, but nothing to label buttons sensibly. So it's quite common to have a dialog with "Yes" and "No" buttons, and and huge text explaining what these options mean. Despite the fact that every at least semi-decent article or book about dialog design recommends to use verbs for button labels.
I recently read that Vista finally offers an API to easily change the button labels. Yeah! And guideline 5 (Use task dialogs for new or frequently used dialog boxes and error messages) specifically recommends:
Yeah again!
However, above this guideline we can see a screenshot of the classic, super retarded Windowesque "Save changes? Yes/No/Cancel" dialog.
I suggest for the final document they just copy this dialog from any random Mac OS application and put a Vista theme on it.