4 ms·

I know you're joking, but don't forget that Metro predated Material Design and iOS 7 by several years :)

by cglong 3y ago

mc32 3y ago
Usability-wise it’s better. It actually had more affordances than Metro did. In Metro you had to freaking poke around to see if there were active elements. Also Metro was too reductivist icon heavy.
afavour 3y ago
IMO it might have been better than both of them! But probably too restrictive. It worked wonderfully on Windows Phone but it didn’t feel right at all blown up to desktop size in Windows 8.
- cglong 3y ago
  "Restrictive" is probably a perfect word to describe it. I maintain that Zune Desktop was the most beautiful app ever produced, but it definitely had a lot of custom design elements on top of the Metro base.
steve1977 3y ago
They did use a flat look in some applications even back in 2000: https://youtu.be/v40aT_Fones?si=ObbyUnbqwqL2ELKP https://youtu.be/v40aT_Fones?si=ObbyUnbqwqL2ELKP This was also similar in style to Windows CE back then IIRC, at least on Pocket PC.
qingcharles 3y ago
Metro was peak design for me. I was doing UI work for MS around 2004 on Windows Media Center, and I think the design on that UI predated it officially becoming "Metro". The flat design work I did for the UI on there I borrowed from Sky Digital's 1998 UI shown at the start of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnJ4YK7XHeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnJ4YK7XHeI
- hnlmorg 3y ago
  I couldn’t disagree more on Metro. For me that was the peak of bad design. With Metro I couldn’t tell the difference between interactive and non-interactive objects because they all looked exactly the same. This might be an unpopular opinion but I still hate desktop UIs that use hyperlinks as navigation elements. I get why they’re useful in documents where you’re cross referencing terms in an almost relational kind of way, but for applications I want widgets to be explicit as interactive. And for desktop applications, you cannot just middle click a link, so you have no idea if a new window will open or you’ll get transported away from the current view with no easy way of returning back to the current screen. KDE, in my opinion, is these days the best example of desktop UI out there. I’m not saying they get everything right, but it is far more consistent, discoverable and self explanatory than modern Windows (again, in my opinion).

I know you're joking, but don't forget that Metro predated Material Design and iOS 7 by several years :)

by cglong 3y ago

I know you're joking, but don't forget that Metro predated Material Design and iOS 7 by several years :)

mc32 3y ago

Usability-wise it’s better. It actually had more affordances than Metro did. In Metro you had to freaking poke around to see if there were active elements. Also Metro was too reductivist icon heavy.

afavour 3y ago

IMO it might have been better than both of them! But probably too restrictive. It worked wonderfully on Windows Phone but it didn’t feel right at all blown up to desktop size in Windows 8.

cglong 3y ago
"Restrictive" is probably a perfect word to describe it. I maintain that Zune Desktop was the most beautiful app ever produced, but it definitely had a lot of custom design elements on top of the Metro base.

steve1977 3y ago

They did use a flat look in some applications even back in 2000: https://youtu.be/v40aT_Fones?si=ObbyUnbqwqL2ELKP https://youtu.be/v40aT_Fones?si=ObbyUnbqwqL2ELKP This was also similar in style to Windows CE back then IIRC, at least on Pocket PC.

qingcharles 3y ago

Metro was peak design for me. I was doing UI work for MS around 2004 on Windows Media Center, and I think the design on that UI predated it officially becoming "Metro". The flat design work I did for the UI on there I borrowed from Sky Digital's 1998 UI shown at the start of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnJ4YK7XHeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnJ4YK7XHeI

hnlmorg 3y ago
I couldn’t disagree more on Metro. For me that was the peak of bad design. With Metro I couldn’t tell the difference between interactive and non-interactive objects because they all looked exactly the same. This might be an unpopular opinion but I still hate desktop UIs that use hyperlinks as navigation elements. I get why they’re useful in documents where you’re cross referencing terms in an almost relational kind of way, but for applications I want widgets to be explicit as interactive. And for desktop applications, you cannot just middle click a link, so you have no idea if a new window will open or you’ll get transported away from the current view with no easy way of returning back to the current screen. KDE, in my opinion, is these days the best example of desktop UI out there. I’m not saying they get everything right, but it is far more consistent, discoverable and self explanatory than modern Windows (again, in my opinion).