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."

Comments

Dispite what everyone says...

[XPeter]

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.

Re:Dispite what everyone says...

[UnknowingFool]

And Vista already has three times the users as OS X does.

Considering MS discontinued selling XP (thus consumers don't have limited choices), that's hardly an endorsing statement. When you buy a consumer PC from Dell, HP, etc, you get some version of Vista as standard. You have to pay more or figure out how to get XP somehow. Also the Vista adoption rate only includes those people that bought a computer with Vista and does not include those that downgraded to XP later. With OS X, people have to choose to migrate to a different OS. That they are doing so at one third the rate of Vista adopters says that 1 in 4 people actively chose to avoid Vista by migrating to a completely different operating system says a lot about how much they are avoiding Vista.

Re:Dispite what everyone says...

[shutdown -p now]

It's like the Oracle/MS-SQL argument... for years MS-SQL has been "getting better" and "more enterprise". Why dick around with a tinkertoy DB when Oracle has done it all for years? Why reward a Johnny-come-lately?

Why not, if it does anything that you need it to, for much cheaper? Or maybe because it has better integration with your platform of choice?

Note that your argument can be equally applied to PostgreSQL or MySQL. And the answer will be the same there, too.

Re:Dispite what everyone says...

[Stevecrox]

You realise that since XP Sp2 windows has been pretty much rock solid, the only time Vista has managed to crash on me was when I first installed it onto a machine with dodgey ram. Once readyboost filled that area of the ram up the machine would crash.

I realise I'm just feeding a karma whore but considering every man and his dog has been raving about how much quicker Windows 7 and there are articles on how to get it working on an Asus EEE pc. You must have had your heard in the sand.

"Bat Signal" in miniature is annoying enough

[Dr_Barnowl]

It makes me nervous enough to have miniature popups of certain windows....

K.I.S.S

[pilgrim23]

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

Re:K.I.S.S

[nine-times]

I've read (though I don't know for sure and can't find backup at the moment) that Microsoft's GUI design is much more of a trial & error approach than Apple's. They throw stuff in, put it in front of users, ask users what they think, and study the users' reactions in a scientific sort of way. If it make test users' workflows more efficient by Microsoft's measures and causes positive reactions in test users, then the design is used. There exact process may be much more complicated than that, but from what I've heard, that's the general idea.

I've read that Apple's process, on the other hand, has a little more emphasis on the opinions and views of GUI designers and experts, as well as the personal opinion of Steve Jobs. (again, supposedly)

It wouldn't be clear to me at the outset which approach would give better results.

Re:K.I.S.S

[MrMista_B]

If you're trying to actually /sell/ an operating systerm to home users, the first thing people will look at, and the main thing they will use in judging whether or not it's worth buying, is the user interface.

And if the user interface looks cheap and lazy, they're going to think, justified or not, that the entire operating system, therefore, was cheap and lazy. /That/ is why there are so many, as you put it, 'gee whiz' features in new versions - it's the only thing most people will ever see.

Re:K.I.S.S

[eebra82]

I used to think just like you do now. When XP was released, I forced the ugly Windows 2000 theme because I didn't want graphical interfaces left and right. Then I realized that it's not really cluttering anything, just that I am not used to the looks.

I think that a modern operating system must look good and flashy, but more importantly, configurable. It should appeal as trendy and nice to those who don't care to look under the shell, yet configurable enough to appeal to geeks who want features on or off.

Finally, I'd like to say that features like the bat signal should be included in Windows 7, but disabled by default.

Re:K.I.S.S

[PPH]

If it make test users' workflows more efficient by Microsoft's measures and causes positive reactions in test users, then the design is used.

Except that they can only expect their test subjects to spend a limited amount of time with the product.

Research has shown (don't ask me to cite, Google for it) that users start out with the GUI and all the little helpers turned on. As time goes by and they gain more experience, they turn off the animated paperclips, the help pop-ups and rely more on keyboard shortcuts. Autocad is an example of this (one I use occasionally). Inexperienced users (like me) tend to rely on the point and click interface. But the experienced users rarely touch the mouse, doing the bulk of their work with the CLI. This isn't something that would be revealed by a few days of testing. These changes occur with months (or years) of experience.

this is why I no longer mess with betas

[Saint Stephen]

when I worked at MS, I used to always install the IDS and IDW builds. Not the dailies - they never worked. But I got really tired of learning about possible features that would never really exist, and now from the outside world I'm tired of learning about betas, because it's never exactly like the shipping product. Who cares? I'll just learn about it when it's done.

It does me zero good to know about things that I'm not going to create myself. If MS will implement it in five years, I'll learn about it in five years.

Vista adoption..

[rs232]

"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?

Re:Sounds interesting.

[lordtoran]

KDE 4. This is where Microsoft apparently borrowed their ideas this time.

Re:Sounds interesting.

[Shakrai]

KDE 4. This is where Microsoft apparently stole their ideas this time.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Sounds interesting.

[David Gerard]

KDE 4. Microsoft saw it was incredibly pretty and also didn't bloody work and thought, "I gotta get me some o' that!"

Re:Sounds interesting.

[Shakrai]

Should be -1 Troll.

Wow, nobody has any sense of humor today....

as Microsoft has a well paid legal team at their disposal which would most likely prevent unauthorized usage of patented ideas.

Yeah, when would Microsoft ever violate patents?

Re:shame on you Firefox/Chrome user...

[idontgno]

Bash screens. Macros. Feh.

I wire 75 baud 20 ma current loop leads directly into the muscles of my left forearm. I use slightly rusty safety pins to pierce my "insulation". I key Baudot by flexing my left index finger and decode Baudot from the computer by feeling the twitches of my left pinky finger.

Yes, half-duplex. It's a luxury, but you gotta treat yourself right sometimes.

Oh, yeah, I use csh too. Because sometimes you gotta treat yourself badly to compensate for the luxuries of things like half-duplex.

All Wow No Fuctionality

[Iyonesco]

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.

Re:All Wow No Fuctionality

[Simulant]

Things such as consistency, clarity and efficency have gone and instead all we have is "wow"

Hear,hear. It's shocking how inconsistent Vista/Win7/Office2008 is. Just try to find "Options" in IE, Explorer, Windows Mail, and Word08. It's completely random. Don't even get me started on the Control Panel.

I wish they would focus more on usability for everyone, and not just the lowest common denominator.

I'd like to see a consistent level of detail implemented across all of the tasks that an OS is really supposed to be good at, like moving data around.

For example, You drag and drop a file to a different location and the file copy dialog box appears. This first dialog box can remain unchanged from XP except for the addition of a 'More' or 'Details' button. Click on that button and now you have detailed stats like, copy speed, # of files to be copied, # of files left, etc.... And then there's one more 'More' button. Click on that and now you see the entire queue which you can manipulate live (remove files, add files, etc...)

This would give 2 or 3 classes of users a much better experience. Grandma never has to click more and things work more or less as expected. Someone who wants a little more depth, might click more once to see detailed stats, and more hard core users could click yet again to manipulate the copy queue as the copy is in progress.

This is the kind of functionality I wanted added to Windows. Improvements to core capabilities and windows into what is really going on which can be opened as needed. MS has a tendency to hide how a computer actually works from the user. They are doing them a disservice, IMO.

There are 1000s of cool utilities that add truly useful core functionality to Windows. If MS just bought the best and figured out a way to integrate them in a consistent manner, they'd have a much better product (and probably for a much lower cost), than Vista/Win7.

I like a pretty UI as much as the next person but if what's under the hood is invisible and doesn't perform, then what's the point. And half-assed utilities like Notepad, Windows Mail (in win7 beta anyway), wordpad, Paint, and Hyperterminal (thank god that's gone) are just a waste of space. How hard is it to include useful text editor for goodness sake? I think MS at least owes me that.

Re:All Wow No Fuctionality

[jaavaaguru]

I totally agree. I'm not sure if it's still there, but they used to have a document on MSDN that discussed how to implement consistent user interfaces for Windows apps. They seem to be completely ignoring this themselves.

I've not used Windows at home now for about 10 years. Linux UIs may not have looked pretty back then, but at least they were consistent if you stuck with apps designed for your chosen desktop environment.

I've found OS X apps to have a consistency level somewhere in between.

Re:Sounds interesting.

[lordtoran]

Well, some guys from ZDNet presented it as a Windows 7 beta and nobody noticed the difference.

4.2 works fine for me BTW and I switched to it from 3.5.10 for everyday use, but the former releases indeed were quite unfinished.

Priorities

[Tubal-Cain]

Remote cockpunch feature still unimplemented

First things first. We need to invent a device that remotely stabs people in the face, first.

Re:Sounds interesting.

[malevolentjelly]

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.