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CSS3 Microsoft Modern Buttons
- highace 14y agoGreat job on the implementation, examples, and documentation, but personally I don't like these kind of buttons. They don't look like buttons. Take the text away that usually specifies an action (like 'download', 'submit', 'buy now') and all you have is a rectangular coloured box.
- acesubido 14y agoI really do appreciate the critique and the compliment. A few months ago I've been really searching high and low for a simple library to recreate those buttons Microsoft uses on their websites. I do agree, it really doesn't look like buttons when you take away the text. Well anyway, I decided to build one for my own. Just shared this v1.1 release to everyone here at hn. Just maybe, just maybe, someone out there also needs a simple button/form library for such a specific need. The release kind of addresses some issues, because some people keep contacting me at twitter or fb asking me "how-to's", so hopefully most of their 'needs' are met :) Really tried to make the documentation a little eye friendly for everyone. Thanks again man!
- highace 14y agoOh of course, I don't mean that as a dig towards you - it's great that you found something that was needed and implemented it yourself, which you've done very well. I guess it's more towards Microsoft for taking a concept that is relatively well ingrained by now (I'm referring to buttons with bevels, gradients, and shadows), and turning it on it's head in a seemingly backwards way.
- navs 14y agoI for one am a fan of the Metro look. Whether I'd ever use it on a client's site, that I can't say but for my own creations I simply adore the look. Awesome work! Can you maybe point me towards any other metro UI libraries you may have found?
- acesubido 14y agoFor WPF (.NET) applications, I've personally used MahAppsMetro (http://mahapps.com/MahApps.Metro/ http://mahapps.com/MahApps.Metro/). For web, I've seen code52's metroCSS (https://github.com/Code52/metro.css/ https://github.com/Code52/metro.css/) and olton's Metro UI CSS (http://metroui.org.ua/ http://metroui.org.ua/) Both are full-blown frameworks with grids and everything and I've tried them out for my needs, but most libraries are too over the top. I needed something more stripped down for buttons that can work with Bootstrap or with my own handmade disaster. On a sidenote, the day Microsoft adviced and pushed developers to stop calling it "Metro" and call it "Modern UI" instead (http://gizmodo.com/5933580/on-second-thought-microsoft-is-calling-metro-modern-ui-style-now http://gizmodo.com/5933580/on-second-thought-microsoft-is-ca...), really got their own ecosystem off balance.
- navs 14y agoThanks. I find these full blown templates invaluable in prototyping.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoThey do look like buttons when incorporated into a Metro-style design. The contrast with their surroundings, and the text, makes it clear. Metro isn't about skeuomorphic design, you see.
- jaimzob 14y agoBut affordances (such as bevelled buttons) are not the same as skeuomorphic design. Bevelling an area of the screen implies that something is pressable and hence aids the user. Covering iCal in a fake leather bitmap does not help the user. WP7/Metro seems to have taken a lot of tried and tested affordances away, but hasn't really replaced them with anything.
- MatthewPhillips 14y agoBevelled buttons make a flat object appear to be three dimensional. It predates what we think of skeuomorphism today, but it's just a predecessor.
- troels 14y agoYou're right of course, but if you take that to the extreme, styling a clickable action with a coloured square is skeumorphism too (it's still a button). The way I see it, the concept of a button has long since tracended into a metaphor in the visual language of UI. Where it used to mimic the physical world, it has since been reduced to a symbol. I think that most people would say that the beveling effect is part of this symbol. If that is the case, then Metro tries to redefine an established symbol. This isn't unique per se - languages evolve all the time, but it does explain why a lot of people might be confused of it.
- bratsche 14y agoThis isn't about skeuomorphic design or lack thereof. Take a look at the examples page, at things like button groups or button strips. They're grey rectangles, and the only way to tell that they're clickable buttons is if you mouse-over them. This is a problem on a touch device because there's no way to trigger that state. In fact, each example group has a grey rectangle in the top-left corner that says "Example" and the distinguishing feature is that it uses a bolder font in a lighter shade of grey. But otherwise a user might think it's also a button. So I guess when you say it's got to be incorporated into a Metro-style design, you just really can't have any other colored rectangles on the page anywhere lest they be confused with input right? I'm not saying this to be critical of the author. I think he/she did a fantastic job, and the buttons look really well done for Metro style.
- cooldeal 14y ago> Take the text away that usually specifies an action (like 'download', 'submit', 'buy now') and all you have is a rectangular coloured box. I guess that is the part of the point, to have actionable text which describes what happens if you press the button.
- vyrotek 14y agoThey look like clickable buttons to me when used here: https://www.windowsazure.com https://www.windowsazure.com
- cientifico 14y agoGood... nice ... but they don't look like buttons. I tested with my mother, with my grandma, and my girlfriend. The buttons doesn't work. But the site is nice.
- danjessen 14y agoI like it it. More compontents would be great, but there is always hope that those will come in the future :)
- acesubido 14y agoHopefully, if the demand for more components rises :) thanks again for the compliment.
- jbigelow76 14y agoVery nice work. I appreciate the section about integrating with Bootstrap, I may use these in my next website.
- acesubido 14y agoIf you'll be using bootstrap, just a heads up: I found out from a ticket someone issued in Github that Bootstrap released new icons on 2.1.1. Going to try and incorporate that in the next push :)
- jtreminio 14y agoI've been looking for a metro-style framework for months. I have fallen head over heels for the flat look of MS's new style, particularly something like outlook.com More components would be awesome!
- devniel 14y agoNice work, i like the metro style.
- duqee 14y agoI think these look great! good job, I don't think you will have many people not knowing a button is a button, if you added a 2px raduis on them you would look the same as gmail buttons and don't tell me people don't know they are buttons too?
- ThomasQue 14y agoPlease, make the link to the examples more visible. If it hasn't been on HN, I wouldn't have taken the time to look for them (never saw the topbar) : I clearly don't want to download them if I cannot see them first. Also the gigantic banner on the frontpage is useless to me, I didn't read it, at all. Other than that, I find the website, including the buttons, quite clean.
- acesubido 14y agonoted, trying to get more feedback on that jumbo banner. i'll see if maybe a link to "getting started" on the bottom could lessen people getting "lost" as well.
- ThomasQue 14y agoThe way I see it : no banner, a huge "CSS3 Microsoft Modern Buttons", some examples, then a huge "See more" button (like your "Download ...") and a less visible "Download" button (or maybe at the top of each page, something like the GitHub's "Fork me"). All before the fold. Just my 2 cents though ;)
- anons2011 14y agoWould be nice if this page - http://ace-subido.github.com/css3-microsoft-metro-buttons/buttons.html http://ace-subido.github.com/css3-microsoft-metro-buttons/bu... was included in the zip as an html page.
- acesubido 14y agoNoted :) along with everyone's comments. Compiling all the stuff people might need and all your comments, would make an update in the following days if I have time. You're right, maybe a single HTML template alongside the download would be great. Thanks again!
- mbesto 14y agoThis is a question to the design-minded folk here: (who can explain possibly with science) 1. Why would MS chose to use non-rounded buttons? My understanding is that rounded corners draw attention to content in the middle because they require less cognitive strain.[1] As far as I know, the only reason these buttons are/can be successful is if there is marginally more space between the edges and the content. (thus instead of rounded corners drawing the attention inwards, the large blank space is) [1]- http://www.uiandus.com/blog/2009/7/26/realizations-of-rounded-rectangles.html http://www.uiandus.com/blog/2009/7/26/realizations-of-rounde...
- joshka 14y agoShane Morris @shanemo (ex 'softie designer UX guy) gave a recent talk on Being Authentically Digital with Win 8. He stated the same thing. Also that the human brain is wired to recognise T shapes making the Windows 8 start menu layout a problem. My guess, they didn't want it to look like an iOS screen.
- hnriot 14y agoI agree with your conclusion, that not looking like iOS is in itself a design goal, and one that makes sense. Just as with anything else in design, a lot of people are tired of looking at iOS rounded everything.
- mtgx 14y agoThere's no philosophy behind Microsoft doing this. They simply did it because they want their Metro design to catch on, regardless if that makes for a better web or not.
- eyevariety 14y agoThis is my understanding too. And I think the Metro look is going to perform particularly poorly when it is isolated to navigational components on a webpage while content follows whatever other visual form. IMHO the real MS interface isn't very desktop/mouse friendly and the reason it works is because all of those square buttons are the only thing you can activate in the metro screens. If I put one rounded button in the metro interface I'll bet it would get clicked far more often than the other interface elements. It wonder if they tested it vs a more humanistic version?
- joshka 14y agoNice work, I would definitely use this in a project that needed metro^H^H^H^Hodern buttons. Like ThomasQue, I think you need to put some button examples on the home page. I wasn't entirely sure what a metro button was going to look like. The aliasing of the icons looks a little off (I'm viewing on a retina MBP, so it stands out against the crisp text). Zoom in and you'll see what I mean. The edges are not crisp in the right places. The circles don't look perfectly rounded. The plus has unnecessary aliased verticals, etc. Perhaps start with a higher quality vector and scale down, taking care to align the sides with a pixel border.
- bratsche 14y agoI really like what you've done. I also like that you built it on top of Foundation, which I've just recently discovered and love. :) One thing I'd like to see is the focus style. Searching through your code it looks like you do have support for it, so I guess it's just a request for something to add to the demo page.
- cheeaun 14y agoNote that there's also jQUIT, which has Windows-8-like themes for jQuery UI components. http://jquit.com/builder/ http://jquit.com/builder/
- ridgehkt 14y agoAll you did was take Bootstrap's built-in buttons and remove the gradients and rounded corners. That's not a modern design, it's just plain and boring.
- acesubido 14y agoIf you read the readme and the source. You would find that much of it was from Tim O Donnell's Google buttons. As my process 3 months ago I gave them a new CSS base, repainted and attached thin bevels. As for the colors I matched the colors and gradients from Microsoft's websites. I barely touched bootstrap for the buttons except for the dropdown, the radio button javascript are hand-made. The form elements and icons however are a different story, they came from Bootstrap and Syncfusion. All sources are transparently mentioned in the acknowledgements section of the readme.
- JimmaDaRustla 14y agoI thought this was a joke at first, poking fun at the rediculous minimalistic design - solid square button. But there is actually some content.
- oldgregg 14y agoCan I just drop this into a bootstrap project or do I need to rename all my button classes?
- acesubido 14y agoyep, you can just drop it into a bootstrap project. if you want a button to use the style just add "m-" to the usual bootstrap "btn" class.
- feverishaaron 14y agoThe lack of clear affordances in the Microsoft design really bothers me. * When two buttons are next to each other, do they behave as tabs, toggles or buttons with disparate behaviors? You can't tell. * is an icon next to a field actionable? I have no idea until I try to click it. * These buttons are very reliant on :hover to indicate behavior. That's not very useful for users on touch devices (Is the button intentionally disabled, or is it broken?)
- nollidge 14y agoI agree. While I really like the aesthetic behind Metro's minimalism, I'm not convinced the usability is there.
- IanDrake 14y agoHaving a windows phone for a while now, I can tell you this sort of thing was really unnerving at first. All I can say is that you get used to it. Questions like: "is that a label or button?" were frequent in my mind because many "buttons" that are just text, with nothing to suggest they're clickable. However, once you mind is free of the notion that a button must have a border around it or be underlined, you start to admire the simplicity.
- elpool2 14y agoOne issue I noticed.. In Chrome if you zoom the browser to 125%, the 'arrow in a circle' icons look funny.