Last week saw Microsoft unveil its latest operating sytem- taking a radical new direction with “Windows 8,” abandoning many of the traditional Windows hallmarks in favor of a brightly coloured, tile-centric interface apparently designed to play well on everything from tablets to desktops. Tunde Cockshott, Creative Consultant at Amaze, examines if Microsoft’s ‘post PC’ gamble has paid off…
My first impression on viewing the AllThingsD Windows 8 demo (http://bit.ly/kNtytO) was WOW, Microsoft is doing interesting user interfaces. Just like the aborted Courier project, it appears to be leading not following. What’s amazing is that it proposes a unified operating system (OS) experience across all platforms. I loved the use of HTML5 as a development environment, and the simplicity and boldness of the approach.
But then things turned sour. We’re shown how you can swipe back into traditional Windows 7, to existing Office apps and all their complexity and non-touch friendly interfaces, as well as how to deal with files and directories and all that stuff. Then reality struck home and you start to question the approach.
When the iPad arrived the old school PC view was that its OS was toy like. Real computer users need access to file directories and to be able to “get under the hood.” The iPad’s OS simplicity was an affront to real computing and the techies argued that no one in their right mind would want this.
The single greatest thing that the iPad does is to do away with the baggage of desktop computing by recognising that when you use a tablet you want to use applications to perform dedicated tasks rather than to open and edit files. The paradigm of the desktop is about putting the user in control of information of many types. The clue is in the name: it mimics the desktop. One could say it attempts to bring order to the chaos of the real desktop. In fact in most cases this is not achieved, rather mirroring the behaviors and activities of deskbound users.
While initially it seems a great idea to have one user experience to rule them all, it fails to recognise the differences between the activities and types of tasks and mindsets of users in each situation. Mobile devices are fundamentally different from desktop devices, in size, portability, how they are held and interacted with, where they are used and what they are used for. While the desktop metaphor is long in the tooth, so far no strong contender has appeared that meets the needs of PC users. Yes, we can and should learn from what has worked on mobile and see what can be applied to desktop, but this should be done in a way that fits with the desktop user interface (UI) as opposed to a kind of Jekyll and Hyde solution.
Apple’s next OS, Lion, brings in some of the successful, and applicable elements from the iPad experience: full screen, auto save and increased use of gestures. But these are integrated into an existing desktop paradigm.
Looking back at Windows 7 demos, there was lots of talk and hype about touch screen interaction. But it has not arrived. Who do you know that uses a finger to interact with Excel? Numbers on the iPad is not the same Numbers that is available on Apple’s OSX. The UI has been adapted to work in a touch environment, to work wholly within a touch OS.
I still think that at the heart of the Windows 8 demo there were great ideas for touch devices, but it is not the one size fits all solution Microsoft is proposing.
Tunde Cockshott
Creative Consultant
Amaze
www.amaze.com/
