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Beautiful design, horrible UX. (I know, I know. Suddenly everyone on HN is a UX designer. But hear me out.) I count eight distinct types of system font in ther

Beautiful design, horrible UX. (I know, I know. Suddenly everyone on HN is a UX designer. But hear me out.) I count eight distinct types of system font in there, all denoting different data/functionality. Semiotically there are no signifiers other than the size, weight and position of the text. It's the closest thing you can get to mystery meat navigation whilst still providing words. Look at current incarnations of Windows Explorer that people are familiar with. There is a very clearly delineated sidebar and "address bar" at the top. (The web changed the way that people interact with computers. Many people's first and only experience with computer applications is a web browser, and unfortunately for many of them it will have been Internet Explorer.) By removing the lines of demarkation between UI elements, instead of downgrading the system interface it's been upgraded. Everything in the Windows Explorer pane is on equal footing. The out of focus windows would get old pretty quickly too. If you're working on two things side by side your eyes have to switch between one in-focus and one out-of-focus window. Unless there's a way to dynamically switch focus to "on" for multiple windows, but then that would get messy quite quickly when you can't tell whether something is in the background or foreground, active or inactive. Yuck. The dock at the bottom looks nice, but the challenge is that you're reliant on icon designers adhering to very specific standards or the whole thing will look crazy.

molmalo 14y ago
You are right, Looking good and actually being usable are quite different. The main problem with this concept, I think, was that the extreme minimalism ended up in a UI that hides too much information. Even when I love the way it looks like, it feels like I would need to hover everything, just to get more info (and if Win8 aims to touch devices... hover is not good). And of course, it doesn't look good for multitasking. Here are some other concept designs from the same time... http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/25/2823647/windows-8-desktop-ui-concepts http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/25/2823647/windows-8-desktop-... This other example is really interesting, because of the fact that it anticipated extremely well how Windows 8's Explorer looks like today: http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/056/8/b/8b357c7cff026daa20807ea9e1130ed5-d4qw8bx.jpg http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/056/8/b/8b357c7cff026... http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/056/0/b/0bd5349ab72b1e7a6efbf476c7db0cf0-d4qwaa3.jpg http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/056/0/b/0bd5349ab72b1... Compare it to the real thing: http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-01-29-43-metablogapi/8270.Desktop_2D00_theme_5F00_0459AA86.png http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-bl...
MaysonL 14y ago
Reminds me of the recent (horrible, imo) Google redesigns.
ricardobeat 14y ago
I think you're reading too much into your acquired knowledge. I count two typefaces, at varying sizes & emphasis, according to their importance. The header hierarchy and sizing is quite nice actually. Separating lines are not the only way to achieve grouping or separation, whitespace can be just as (usually more) effective. You can see in the Skype window that a slightly darker background helps isolate the action area and give focus to the chat area. The gestalt principles are also in effect here. My main criticism would be the unnecessary whitespace at the top of the Explorer and Skype windows, which is also inconsistent with the browser window behind, and causes the window controls (max/min/close) to be too far from the edge and consequently less easy targets. In Skype it's even worse since they are shunned onto the middle of the window. That is an usability nightmare. I agree with the out-of-focus effect. Maybe the effect could only apply to overlapping windows, if windows are not touching then both are in focus - that solves the multi-app workspace case. OSX uses very broad shadows to basically achieve the same.
- georgespencer 14y ago
  Sorry, not typefaces: it was meant to be typefaces/different spins on typefaces. Separating lines aren't the only way, but there isn't enough whitespace here to be good: it just looks like a regular Windows Explorer window without the lines; there's not a lot of increased space.

molmalo 14y ago

You are right, Looking good and actually being usable are quite different. The main problem with this concept, I think, was that the extreme minimalism ended up in a UI that hides too much information. Even when I love the way it looks like, it feels like I would need to hover everything, just to get more info (and if Win8 aims to touch devices... hover is not good). And of course, it doesn't look good for multitasking. Here are some other concept designs from the same time... http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/25/2823647/windows-8-desktop-ui-concepts http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/25/2823647/windows-8-desktop-... This other example is really interesting, because of the fact that it anticipated extremely well how Windows 8's Explorer looks like today: http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/056/8/b/8b357c7cff026daa20807ea9e1130ed5-d4qw8bx.jpg http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/056/8/b/8b357c7cff026... http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/056/0/b/0bd5349ab72b1e7a6efbf476c7db0cf0-d4qwaa3.jpg http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/056/0/b/0bd5349ab72b1... Compare it to the real thing: http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-01-29-43-metablogapi/8270.Desktop_2D00_theme_5F00_0459AA86.png http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-bl...

MaysonL 14y ago

Reminds me of the recent (horrible, imo) Google redesigns.

ricardobeat 14y ago

I think you're reading too much into your acquired knowledge. I count two typefaces, at varying sizes & emphasis, according to their importance. The header hierarchy and sizing is quite nice actually. Separating lines are not the only way to achieve grouping or separation, whitespace can be just as (usually more) effective. You can see in the Skype window that a slightly darker background helps isolate the action area and give focus to the chat area. The gestalt principles are also in effect here. My main criticism would be the unnecessary whitespace at the top of the Explorer and Skype windows, which is also inconsistent with the browser window behind, and causes the window controls (max/min/close) to be too far from the edge and consequently less easy targets. In Skype it's even worse since they are shunned onto the middle of the window. That is an usability nightmare. I agree with the out-of-focus effect. Maybe the effect could only apply to overlapping windows, if windows are not touching then both are in focus - that solves the multi-app workspace case. OSX uses very broad shadows to basically achieve the same.

georgespencer 14y ago
Sorry, not typefaces: it was meant to be typefaces/different spins on typefaces. Separating lines aren't the only way, but there isn't enough whitespace here to be good: it just looks like a regular Windows Explorer window without the lines; there's not a lot of increased space.