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UI Features That Didn't Make It Into Windows 7
TRNick writes "TechRadar talks to Windows 7's Senior User Experience Designer and discovers the interface ideas the Windows 7 team almost, but didn't put into Windows 7, and the stages various UI features went through to their final form. Quoting: '... The next prototype, in February 2007, was called the Bat Signal; when you moved your mouse over an icon in the taskbar, the full window would pop up on screen, highlighted by beams of light (a little like the Batman signal projected over Gotham City). Bat Signal made it easy to find the right window but it caused other problems: 'sometimes people toss the mouse down to the bottom of the screen when they're typing because they don't care where the mouse is and the Bat Signal pops up and that's really intrusive in their flow.' Bat Signal evolved into Aero Peek in Windows 7; you can hover over an icon to get thumbnails and hover over a thumbnail to get a preview of the window."
MS is making a comeback. Win 7 looks great and even as a chrome/ff user I have to say that I'm attracted to IE8.
This is Slashdot, home of the penguin I know. But you have to give MS some credit. They're doing better.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
For those of us not all that interested in gosh gee whiz features that require the next iteration of Moore's Law to support, why not a simple uncluttered GUI that operates the hardware and the network and GETS OUT OF THE WAY when you are working? Elegance through simplicity.... Bill is gone now Steve, you could risk excellence of design as a counterpoint
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
"despite all the 'Vista sucks!' being thrown around, it didn't slow down adoption at all"
Where can I go into a shop and buy a PC with the previous incarnation of Windows? And if Vista is such a success why is MS moving to Windows 7 already?
davecb5620@gmail.com
Whoever is designing the interfaces at Microsoft seems to be living in a fantasy world where functionality is irrelevant and the only thing that matters is "wow".
Things have been going rapidly down hill since around 2005 when they reversed the order tabs appeared in Visual Studio. The new arrangement meant that tabs appeared on the left and pushed all the other tabs along so the position of your files was constantly changing making it hard to keep track of where they are. Microsoft could simply provide the option to revert to the sensible behaviour used by every other application where new tabs appear on the right but despite the public outcry they refuse to do this. So much for their claims of "Work your way".
Next came Internet Explorer 7 where they ditched the traditional tool bar and spread the buttons to the four corners of the earth so nobody can ever find the button they one. I don't think there's a single person who likes this arrangement but once again Microsoft refuse to include any customisation to the intereface so you can "Work your way" just as long as "your way" is the way Microsoft tells you to work.
Then there was Windows Vista which adopted the attitude of "why do in 5 clicks what you can do in 20". Everything now takes more clicks to do so productivity is reduced. For example in XP you could change your resolution, theme, wall paper, screen saver and power saving options all from the Display Properties dialog but in Vista they were spread to multiple different places, making it harder to get things done. The functionality and consistency of interface provided by menus was abandoned and now every window has a different interface with stupid pictures and lots of "wow". The new start menu is worthless and abandons the tree structure to replace it with a list of applications you have to scroll through slowly, further reducing the productivity of Vista users.
Then there was Office 2007 which also ditched the consistent menu style interface and switched to ribbons. It makes it impossible to find the options you're looking for and someone who had the misfortune of getting Office 2007 with a PC once said to me "I've just spent 20 minutes looking for one options in the ribbons".
Windows 7 takes Vista and makes things even worse. The combined quick launch bar & task bar makes it hard to see if an application is running or not and impossible to see how many instances of the application are running. The fantastic Windows Classic theme has been removed completely and now you're forced to use wasteful themese where all windows have thick borders and fat title bars. Consistency has been further abandoned and things like the theme selection dialog box has been replaced by something entirely customised which users have to learn to use. Ribbons have been added to other applications like Paint and the whole thing seems to have been designed to be has hard to use as possible.
Other application interfaces have been destroyed, for example Windows Media Player with it's 1 pixel thick jog bar, lack of menus and ridiculous button arrangement.
The one thing Microsoft used to do right was user interfaces but they've now abandoned everything that makes a good interface. Things such as consistency, clarity and efficency have gone and instead all we have is "wow". I used to use all Microsoft applications but by destroying their interfaces across the board I've been abandoning them one at a time. After trying the Windows 7 beta I've been forced to switch to Linux.
I must admit I'm having a hard time with Linux and there's a lot to learn for a 30 year old who has been raised on Microsoft products. However, it's definitely worth the effort since Linux really does let me "Work your way" while Microsoft just makes that claim and in reality you have to work the way Microsoft tell you.
I always wondered what would bring an end to the Microsoft monopoly and it turns out it's Microsoft themselves. They seem intent on making their own products such a nightmare to use that people are forced to go elsewhere and I'm more than happy to oblige them.
Hate to be the one to break the news but the classic simple start menu is no longer an option in Win7. Several people have come up with 'hacks' to simulate it (since the "new" start menu can still cascade things like Documents, Music, etc. into a popout menu... but you can't revert back to what we call a 'Classic' start menu, even when you use the 'classic' theme. It's gone. Feel free to visit http://www.windows7taskforce.com/ and vote it up if you'd like to see it return but sadly it doesn't seem to have much support.
Play me online? Well you know that I'll beat you. If I ever meet you I'll "/sbin/shutdown -h now" you. -Weird Al, kinda.
KDE 4. This is where Microsoft apparently borrowed their ideas this time.
What from KDE 4 is in Windows 7? Seriously? The only UI concepts I see shared are ones that KDE 4 stole from Vista and Windows 7 inherited.
Here are some subtle differences to help the mentally impaired:
1) Windows 7 does not crash whenenver you look at it funny. Applications more often than not close cleanly when the user wants them to, instead of just randomly throwing a SIGSEGV.
2) Windows 7 has latent functionality- meaning that you will find the UI interacting with applications in a contextual fashion, instead of just providing a taskbar interface that looks attractive, but actually is just a glorified launcher.
3) Your systray is not full of graphically corrupted garbage in Windows 7.
4) Your system will not randomly shoot to 100% cpu usage for mysterious causes in Windows 7 (but that doesn't mean applications won't do this).
5) Windows 7 has a fully documented application development API- and it's actually complete! This means that Windows 7 provides features that aren't simply planned or imaginary. This should be a dead giveaway if you're used to KDE 4.
I suppose when you see an Aston Martin driving down the street you're like "OMG THAT LOOKS JUST LIKE A FORD TAURUS". Well, you're right... they're both cars. Is this just because some braindead aussies thought KDE 4 was Windows 7 on the street. Well.. why not. It's got a start menu on the bottom with a button in the bottom left, icons on the desktop, looks pretty shiny and reflective. To the average user, it might as well be Windows... but you just wait until they try to get something done with KDE 4. If Microsoft tried to sell anything like that as a product, they would go out of business. It would make Vista look like a glorious success- for them to steal from KDE 4 would be like a bakery stealing cow shit from a nearby ranch to decorate their cakes.