What's after Modern UI?

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PCunicorn

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This is of course all going to be speculation, but what do you guys think comes after Modern (Metro)? I assume Winodws 9 will use Modern, as will Windows Phone 9, but what comes after that? More Modern (I doubt this, MS used Aero for Vista and 7, so I assume Modern is the same), or something different?
 
You'd think MS would want to keep the UI look fresh at least every few years, with tweaks between major UI overhauls. I don't particularly like the Win8 UI design, either Metro or flattened/color sucked out classic (iOS 7 does a good job with a flattened UI for comparison).

I don't expect any radical change in UI for Windows 9, at least as far as an overall theme change, and it's too early to really guess what MS will do next. The direction of UIs in one or two more years may play a bigger part of how the next Windows UI overhaul evolves.
 
Metro (because there's nothing "Modern" about it) with its monoblock primary colors ala "nickelodeon fun zone" has no longterm survivability. It's ugly, it hasn't grabbed consumers, and its done little more than piss off existing customers. I don't understand why Microsoft holds on to the idea that a touch UI must be ugly. It doesn't.

Microsoft's touch UI needs a serious come-to-jesus epiphany. A total reboot.
 
DPI said:
Metro (because there's nothing "Modern" about it) with its monoblock primary colors ala "nickelodeon fun zone" has no longterm survivability. It's ugly, it hasn't grabbed consumers, and its done little more than piss off existing customers. I don't understand why Microsoft holds on to the idea that a touch UI must be ugly. It doesn't.

Microsoft's touch UI needs a serious come-to-jesus epiphany. A total reboot.
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Everyone at Microsoft knows Windows 8 is an abomination that hurt their bottom line, it's probably one reason Ballmer got the boot.
 
PornoSatan said:
Everyone at Microsoft knows Windows 8 is an abomination that hurt their bottom line, it's probably one reason Ballmer got the boot.
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So if Windows 8 is this abomination that was so adverse to Microsoft's bottom line, why are profits still fantastic and the stock price up like 70% since 8 launched? Every time the subject of Windows 8 comes up there are those that apparently live in an alternate reality. 18 months after it's release 8.x "only" stands at 12% market share, the month end OS numbers will come out in the morning. Yes, slow adoption rate compared to prior some versions of Windows but in a world that is buying fewer PCs and would have regardless of what 8 looked like because of increasing mobile growth, something no other version of Windows had to deal with. And where's all the OS X and Linux users popping up because of Windows 8? Those market shares haven't seen in big spikes in major market share trackers.

Yes 8.x has it's problems but it looks like were only about 3 months away from most of the major issues being addressed with the return of the Start Menu. And the modern UI isn't going away, it's getting better integrated in with the desktop. That's what I would expect to see more of in Windows 9 and as the Windows RT API evolves. And I would expect aesthetic enhancements like transparent tiles on the Start Screen along with interactivity. The overall basis of the modern UI is pretty sound from what I seen of it's use on tablets, kids pick up Windows 8 tablets as easily as iPads and Android tablets from what I've seen. Getting it to work better on the desktop and more familiar and expanding the API for richer apps seems to be coming as well.
 
Hopefully something that wasn't designed by a woman.
 
heatlesssun said:
So if Windows 8 is this abomination that was so adverse to Microsoft's bottom line, why are profits still fantastic and the stock price up like 70% since 8 launched? Every time the subject of Windows 8 comes up there are those that apparently live in an alternate reality. 18 months after it's release 8.x "only" stands at 12% market share, the month end OS numbers will come out in the morning. Yes, slow adoption rate compared to prior some versions of Windows but in a world that is buying fewer PCs and would have regardless of what 8 looked like because of increasing mobile growth, something no other version of Windows had to deal with.
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I like how you left off that windows 8 was supposed to address mobile concerns for MS, rending the 12% somewhat pathetic. You were quite vocal about it's mobile aspirations before it came out, as I recall.

Not that I really have much of a point, it's just that the disparity amused me.
 
XOR != OR said:
I like how you left off that windows 8 was supposed to address mobile concerns for MS, rending the 12% somewhat pathetic. You were quite vocal about it's mobile aspirations before it came out, as I recall.

Not that I really have much of a point, it's just that the disparity amused me.
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First of all I did mention tablets in my post. And I've always been on the conservative side when it comes to Windows tablets. I repeatedly said at the launch of Windows 8 that Windows tablets were too expensive and that the prices needed to come down. Competitively priced small Windows 8 tablets have only been the market the last six months and there's still a ways to go with pricing which should improve with Windows now free on smaller screen devices. However looking at the overall reviews and customer satisfaction of these cheaper and smaller Bay Trail tablets, it's hard not to say that things have improved dramatically since Windows 8 launched. There are a number of people in this forum with devices like the Dell Venue 8 Pro, Asus VivoTab Note 8, etc. and the satisfaction levels expressed here are very good.

As for the 12% market share, even if it is pathetic, it's still much better than anything else not called Windows on the desktop and it's hard to say just how much of that desktop market share is really coming from a tablet, but it is considerably less than desktops and laptops without question.

All I am saying is that I think overall this is on the right track even if not at the pace it needs to be. Windows 8.x is improving on the desktop, the main issues with the new Start Menu should be sorted out by the end of the summer. Windows 8 tablets have taken a big leap in the last six months in price, size, performance and battery life and that should continue to improve as Atoms get better. The Windows Store is well behind iOS and Android but not as ghost land either and that should improve as it gets easier to develop apps across the Microsoft ecosystem. I think we're just well past the point of something as simple as a Metro off switch or just another keyboard and mouse only OS meaning a whole lot. Microsoft made lots of mistakes in execution but I believe that an OS that does more and runs on more devices makes more sense that one that does less and runs on fewer devices, especially the devices that are rapidly growing as opposed to the ones that aren't.
 
Hopefully a happy medium between Aero Glass and Metro.

TBH I'm sick of AG at this point and have been using Classic for several weeks now and am pretty happy. Metro looks too juvenile; slightly less worse than Luna but not by much.

Aero Basic has awkward button placement (compared to AG) for no reason.

I like AG's look (if dialed down to be more 'frosted glass' than 'clear glass') but it has horrendous performance over RDP/terminal services. Classic feels so snappy no matter what because of how 'flat' it is.
 
Metro/ModernUI has grown on me. Esp the desktop style. Going back to Win 7, it looks ghastly with the glowing title bars and buttons, and I don't miss Glass. Clean and minimalistic is good.

The best UI is the one that isn't there. Window chrome is there because its a standard convention. No one said close/min/max is the only way to interact with a window, and I hope for some innovation in that area.
 
For the most part, I've always liked the design language. We've been through that period of being iteratively impressed by effects, and they were right to dial it way back and cut to the core of how to communicate things visually. Subtle reflections on semi-transparent window borders doesn't communicate anything of any substance, so they don't need to be there.

There are some implementation issues, but on the whole, they're on the right track. What would the value be in changing the basic course now?
 
MrCrispy said:
Metro/ModernUI has grown on me. Esp the desktop style. Going back to Win 7, it looks ghastly with the glowing title bars and buttons, and I don't miss Glass. Clean and minimalistic is good.

The best UI is the one that isn't there. Window chrome is there because its a standard convention. No one said close/min/max is the only way to interact with a window, and I hope for some innovation in that area.
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The driving principles of the modern UI are pretty old and well known. Technology has a way of outpacing many things in our lives and UI design is one of them. There's really nothing new that Microsoft came up with regarding the design aspects of the modern design, they simply went back, like a lot of digital designers have in recent years and drew upon a body of principles that's work for decades in other areas.
 
wonderfield said:
There are some implementation issues, but on the whole, they're on the right track. What would the value be in changing the basic course now?
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When it comes to Windows, Microsoft has for a long time hit the nail on the head when it comes to the big picture. As you point out, implementation and execution have been the stumbling blocks. The modern UI is founded in very old and very successful design principles and we see them being employed more and more everyday in the digital world. Microsoft was extreme and clumsy with the principles initially but the idea is right on. Microsoft is often accused of pushing change for the sake of change in Windows 8 but Windows never has worked like that. Change gets incorporated into Windows when there's a clear path to where things are going. Tablets, touch, simpler applications, the cloud and streamlined UI design. We're well past the point where any of these things are fads, they are here to stay for many, many years to come.
 
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Heatless, your Microsoft white-knighting cracks me up. You're just so passionate about their products.
 
Microsoft's Post-Modern UI will arrive in 2017, and will look almost exactly like iOS 7.
 
Ruoh said:
Heatless, your Microsoft white-knighting cracks me up. You're just so passionate about their products.
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Looking at the nearly last three years of debate over the Windows 8 UI and how it's been decried by so many, I'm far from passionate. I think x86-x64 Windows overall is a fantastic product. Far from perfect but far from the POS that many like to call it these days, including Windows 8. I remember Windows 1.0, when it really was a POS. And then Windows 3.0 came out in 1990 and the rest is history.

My passion is about how this all plays out. The Windows desktop paradigm, while far from dead because of its productive capabilities, simply isn't the way most people compute these days. Everywhere I go I see smartphones and tablets and people with their heads planted into their screens. The desktop is from another era that just isn't how most people think of computers beyond productive capabilities these days. Perhaps this is the end of days for x86-x64Windows. Beyond the desktop, servers and productive it might very well be. My passion is the answer.
 
evilsofa said:
Microsoft's Post-Modern UI will arrive in 2017, and will look almost exactly like iOS 7.
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Unlikely considering that iOS 7 has desktop considerations at this time where today's modern UI in Windows 8 has quite a few.
 
heatlesssun said:
So if Windows 8 is this abomination that was so adverse to Microsoft's bottom line, why are profits still fantastic and the stock price up like 70% since 8 launched? Every time the subject of Windows 8 comes up there are those that apparently live in an alternate reality. 18 months after it's release 8.x "only" stands at 12% market share, the month end OS numbers will come out in the morning. Yes, slow adoption rate compared to prior some versions of Windows but in a world that is buying fewer PCs and would have regardless of what 8 looked like because of increasing mobile growth, something no other version of Windows had to deal with. And where's all the OS X and Linux users popping up because of Windows 8? Those market shares haven't seen in big spikes in major market share trackers.
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If your market landscape is right, it's easy to abuse customers and take your products in directions that people don't like, and still print money. One could also ask EA or Comcast how that business plan works. Consistently at the top of "Worst company ever!" lists, yet seem to be doing quite well.
 
Frobozz said:
If your market landscape is right, it's easy to abuse customers and take your products in directions that people don't like, and still print money. One could also ask EA or Comcast how that business plan works. Consistently at the top of "Worst company ever!" lists, yet seem to be doing quite well.
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If you don't do new things with your products though one day you may not have any customers. Sometimes risk has to be taken, otherwise a product becomes tired and stale, simply being an order taker for existing customers isn't enough. Yes Microsoft made mistakes, they're correcting them, and at the end of it Windows will essentially be the same desktop OS it's always been plus it will be able to run on tablets. Adding more functionality to a product isn't abusing customers. But this process should have been smoother.
 
heatlesssun said:
If you don't do new things with your products though one day you may not have any customers. Sometimes risk has to be taken, otherwise a product becomes tired and stale, simply being an order taker for existing customers isn't enough. Yes Microsoft made mistakes, they're correcting them, and at the end of it Windows will essentially be the same desktop OS it's always been plus it will be able to run on tablets. Adding more functionality to a product isn't abusing customers. But this process should have been smoother.
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Not listening to feedback from them is abusing the customer. A lot of the changes they're implementing to address pain points were pointed out well before release of 8. I'm hopeful that a lot of that can be laid at Balmer's feet, and we'll see great things from the new CEO.

They get an 'E' for 'Effort' and a bronze star so far on this Modern experiment.
 
Frobozz said:
Not listening to feedback from them is abusing the customer. A lot of the changes they're implementing to address pain points were pointed out well before release of 8. I'm hopeful that a lot of that can be laid at Balmer's feet, and we'll see great things from the new CEO.

They get an 'E' for 'Effort' and a bronze star so far on this Modern experiment.
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So they are listening, as Microsoft pretty much always has when it comes to Windows. They however didn't respond as quickly as they should have. When this all get sorted out we're going to a Windows client that is extremely flexible. The same 20 year old desktop UI but with the addition of an entirely new one that will allow Windows to run much better on tablets, some with the lowest price points even seen for Windows devices given that Windows is now free on smaller screen devices. This is certainly not customer abuse at the end of the day. But is should have been better executed.
 
Ruoh said:
Heatless, your Microsoft white-knighting cracks me up. You're just so passionate about their products.
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Considering how lacking and expensive OSX is, and LOTD is a joke, Windows is realistically the only option left for the majority of people, so we should all be taking this seriously. Do you not care about your primary OS?
 
I wish Linux wasn't such a joke on the desktop. You actually have a choice of UI's for it so your not stuck with the MS one size fits all phablet UI.
 
MrCrispy said:
Considering how lacking and expensive OSX is, and LOTD is a joke, Windows is realistically the only option left for the majority of people, so we should all be taking this seriously. Do you not care about your primary OS?
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It's not *my* primary OS. Besides, that was a comment on a user, not the software.
 
wonderfield said:
How expensive is OS X?
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Since OS X can't legally be obtained without purchasing a Mac there's no simple answer to this question. You do now get a certain number of free OS X upgrades depending on how long Apple supports a given device.
 
There are many hidden costs - cost of hardware, software, upgrades, support for older hardware etc. Apple concentrates on the higher end of market, they don't have low cost offerings like Windows oem's.

My opinion is a lot of the damage was done during Win 8's design phase because of Sinofsky's policy of isolating teams within MS, thus preventing collaboration and making sure everyone used new API's, and deciding that the UI was frozen, ignoring the enormous UI feedback on the W8 blog, MSDN and Technet.
 
evilsofa said:
When did buying Mac OS X 10.6 for $28.77 on amazon become illegal?
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You're supposed to only buy it for a Mac computer. It is not designed to work with non-Mac computers. It is technically illegal for you to buy it to get it working on non-Mac hardware.
 
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They should just stick with classic icons instead of turd tiles. And change the outdated Windows UI that doesn't look like it was designed by guys in suit. Remove Start button. Ignore them cavemen.
 
wonderfield said:
Can you break these facets down into average or typical dollar amounts?
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Are you being serious? You know full well OSX needs Mac hardware, it doesn't have anywhere near the backwards compatibility of Windows, there's less freeware, and cost of ownership can be high, but can be mitigated somewhat by high resale value.
 
MrCrispy said:
Are you being serious? You know full well OSX needs Mac hardware, it doesn't have anywhere near the backwards compatibility of Windows, there's less freeware, and cost of ownership can be high, but can be mitigated somewhat by high resale value.
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Wow, you should tell that to the hundreds of users who built their own bootleg OSX machines using off the shelf PC hardware.

OSX requires Mac hardware by license, not by necessity.
 
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