Submission details
Application Continuity - Pick one!
Just look at the photo. My first reaction is - "Man, I hate when I get a brand new computer and it comes preloaded with all this random bloatware". Then you realize it actually is part of Vista and a little bit of your geek soul dies.
Even apps that share the same look are different, Mail and Calendar - Search box is in a different place. Media Player and DVD maker, both are black one has a much fatter bar for some reason. Even the back and foward arros are different on these apps!!
Vista - Clear Confident & Connected. Apparently not the development teams working on it. Maybe if they only had it prior? Chicken or the Egg? :)
All kidding aside - the best thing to do here is really start over. Do not try to fix a trainwreck - you will spend more time on it than you think and your result wont be as nice. I do not know how MS develops, I would hope the UI is very disconnected from the actual logic, say in an MVC style. But, since this site is sort of asking my opinion this is what I would do:
Design two looks, that work well with eachother, I have found that application's that are "editors" (DVD maker, Wordpad, etc) need different UI than those that are "browsers" (Web, Explorer, etc). Borrow from Office 07 for the editors, and the tabbed look for the browsers, but really - PICK something. Sometimes apps will need both, say Mail, one to browse the messages, another to create a new one. But the point is there are only two designs, which means less to learn, and 2 is better than 10 to make work for continuity sake.
Secondly, Blue to me does not mean Communication, Black to me does not mean media, just as Blue Grean does not mean files. All together it looks a mess. I want to control these colors by the theme. Applications contents (not to mention window title) are usually more than enough to help me at a glance find a window (think Excel vs Word).
Let me pick a colors (like the fade in the explorer windows) for the toolbars OS wide (if this stays, and I think it should in some fashion). As an added bonus - you can make the active window have a much richer color, and the inactive window have a more faded version as there is another complaint about figuring out which window is active.
Also, another nice feature of that other OS is color coding of folders, at least the names. I think it looks terrible (some background highlight on the name) but I think it would be a good use of color to change the color of the actual folder icon, sort of like color coding in outlook - and that overrides the default gradient in the toolbar for quick visual reference when open!!
Apple in the past has been accused of terrible consistancy but they have almost killed the brushed metal and the rest of the OS is really starting to follow one or two concepts, and all the third party devs are jumping in line behind them - this can happen, needs to happen on windows!!!
High
High
Not fixed
Discussion (39 comments)
Totally agree.
I was gonna post on the exact thing; MS HAS to pay attention to this one. Although I'd add Windows Photo Gallery; and put the severity to "High".
One of the things I've noted is that the vista explorer's interface elements can be adopted to a multitude of programs (back-forward buttons in almost all programs; search field and breadcrumbs into WMP11, Photo Gallery, Mail; etc..)
IMO they should develop three UI paradigms - "utility", "professional" and "immersive". This would be as big as a blog-post so I'm gonna skip on it..
IMO, the problem is that the color differences and UI choices seem arbitrary and schizophrenic. The user will not pick up on the reason each type of application has different colors. But I don't think in the modern era of design, every application has to look exactly alike.
Also, the very fact that we have so many programs that do the same thing makes Windows Vista seem like a mess. You can manage photos in Explorer, Media Player, Media Center, Photo Gallery, and Live Photo Gallery, which is, for some reason, a separate application from Photo Gallery.
IMO, the black in Movie Maker and DVD Maker is really ugly.
Anybody curious about this needs to go read the Ubuntu Human Interface Guidelines. Programmers are simply not UI designers.
This is the best example of the fiascoes throughout the development of Vista. Seemed like no body within their teams really talked to one another other nor followed up with the UI guidelines. Too many programmers spoil the Vista.
I know that this was a concern during the development of Windows Vista and it is apparent enough that it was never fixed. Granted, the user can figure out which window is the active one by knowing that the active one is going to the front-most one. But most of us, including myself, have to look through all of the windows to see which window is actually the active one. The differences are so subtle that it makes this kind of thing hard to do.
most of these tools shouldn't be part of windows anyway. Windows meeting space should be part of the windows live messenger, mail, calendar and contacts should be all in one windows live tool, instead of windows defender they should offer onecare as a free ad financed download and instead of the media player they should push the zune software. They should define three kinds of design: 1. windows (operating system), 2. windows live (all the internet communication, cloud and colaboration stuff) and 3. Multimedia (Zune and so on). Windows should be completely and consistently designed like office 2007.
Vista UX guidelines list eight kinds of windows (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511259.aspx)
The MacOS has four (http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserEx.../uid/20000961-TPXREF48)
You couldnt have explained it better.Hopefully Microsoft will listen
UI of Media Player and Photo Gallery should be the new standard...
nstenberg,
I think the window kinds in the Vista UX guidelines are meaningful.
But I have a big problem with the fact that Microsoft is creating two separate types of interfaces for settings, the control panel interface and a property window, making all application settings windows look completely different from system-level settings.
I'm working on an application now, and I'm planning to adapt the control panel look instead of a tabbed window; the way I'm going to work it out is by doing something like making the root instead of 'Desktop', the program files folder 'Program Files\Program Name', so it has the same behavior as an 'Explore from here' window , and also make the Control panel settings for that application available in Explorer under 'Program Files\Program Name\Control Panel'
Microsoft should adopt something like this.
I also think that Property pages for things like files needs to be revamped. I have no problem with the use of tabs for property sheets, but they need to change the window style and behavior , perhaps so that its attached to the window in which the called object exists, and normally has the behavior of being dockable. So that in Explorer for instance, you can have the property sheets docked in the layout, or detatch them. Also, the visual appearance needs to be rethought, Microsoft should abandon the Windows 95 look
Also it might make sense for properties windows to look like control panel sheets, and be resizable in the same way---the only difference would be properties sheets operate in tabs, while control panel sheets operate in an explorer-style
Well I think the current design for Wizards does make sense to me. (Although it's kind of weird that the back button is in the upper left corner while the Next button is in the lower right corner...) But I think this OK. What I think they'll have to do is to make a more "streamlined" consistent look for all of their applications. They should (as they already have in many many cases) more and more use Explorer windows for setting properties not ugly oldfashioned dialogs.
But it's not only Windows that ships with various designs, Office again features its own controls and shit... What the hell?
Some time ago, lack of UI consistency was a drawback under Linux. This was clearly making it a not yet mature OS. Now it's just the same with Vista...
Using only 2 different designs for all of the Microsoft Software would make life realy easier! That would be a great step for a better user experience!
My biggest complaint about this is less the design of each window, and more that they are all diffrent colors to start. The color for all of these should be the color you choose as the basic color for the OS. Its a pain in the but to change each one (assuming you can) to that color just to make a more consistent UI. Why can't it just work on your default by default?
Good one - I actually wrote a blog post about cause of this: http://blog.tomaskafka.com/article/vista-and-mi...a-powerful-GUI-toolkit
Check out the back buttons too. Looks like a submission from me.
I love the improvements in look and feel, but the lack of a solid overall theme was one of the biggest let downs of Vista for me. I wish I could vote this up a thousand times. Your getting there MS, but you really went all crazy on this. It feels like every developer of every app just decided to go off and do their own thing. Standardize standardize standardize.
Changed solution description.
Changed severity from [Medium] to [High].
Changed impact from [Medium] to [High].
Thank you! Yes, I think the best way to deal with this is to set a single color for all the tool-/command bars, and let it be customized via the Control Panel/Display Properties. The iconic Vista cyan would be a good and flexible choice.
Notice how the search bars are in different locations: Mail, Cal, and Explorer. Very inconsistent.
I filed a separate issue for Mail, Calendar and Contacts here:
http://www.aerotaskforce.com/view/589
Please vote!
I will pray for this one...it's one of my most desired.
This my biggest issue with Vista. I value consistency and immersion extremely highly and have great difficulty making the applications I write fit in with the rest of the OS, as the rest of the OS is inconsistent.
Each of these apps were done by different MS teams.
And? Is that supposed to be an excuse?
I spose if MS keeps them locked away from eachother, emails between teams filltered, and prys the screenshot button off all the keyboards then, maybe.
Otherwise it's poor project management.
-1
different colors and toolbars allow you to distinguish the applications in taskbar's live thumbnails. If all applications would look in the same way, you will not be able to distinguish them.
Sure some inconsistencies are present, but you're exagerating...
no you are bear luke
Please go
A hint that in Windows 7 it may ( if the info/shots on the link is true) have a consistent layout.
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080917/windo...bon-based-ui-platform/
Hmmmm... their is a .Chris comment inside... is that the same .Chris here?
Great news guys! Microsoft has finally listened!! They have a consistant layout in store in Windows 7. Build in applications like Paint, Wordpad use the Office 2007 Blue Style ribion and Calculator, Windows Media Player, Windows Explorer, Notepad, IE8 and toolbars all use the same style same color light blue bars.
They look awesome! Big hand and shout out to Microsoft! They are doing a wonderful job with Windows 7! I wish I could blog about this but my blog hosting is down :(.
Anyways see the UI of Windows 7 here: http://www.thinknext.net/archives/2268
-Mike Lierman
As said 0vermind this should be changed to fixed btw many other ideas are outdated too
Windows Live is adopting the "Ribbon". Let's hope there is an order to this, or not just random ribbon happiness.
I use a mac sometimes, and every app has it's own quirks. But there is a "general feeling" to it. Like, usually a sidebar is on the left, most-used buttons on top, other options on right. Do this, and unify the color, and keep ALL these colors but make them centralized. Or, give every app a nice, easy and unintrusive way (ahem Windows Live Messenger) to manage their own color
great job ryanlm (submitter) & the rest of Aero Taskforce !
MS seems to have picked up the whole idea you've suggested: Editor apps like WordPad, Paint etc. are going Ribbon, Viewer apps like WMP, Explorer, IE are all going in the "IE 7" direction. And the technicolor randomness of the toolbar is gone, it's all consistent with the rest of the chrome. WLPG, WLM are also using the "IE7" style. WLMM is using Ribbon. The only inconsistent ones now are WLM (but it's actually unlike the other apps) and WLW (which should use Ribbon). I also think Blu-ray/DVD/CD Maker should not be an independent app. It should be just a framework/api that WLMM, WLPG & WMP and third-parties can hook into.
by the way, the first WLM refers to Mail (which uses "IE7" look), and the second to Messenger (which uses the "hotmail"/services look)
In windows 7 this has been addressed I noticed this right away.
Office 2007 should use one of these looks IMO
wasker wrote on June 4, 2008, 12:21pm
Voted for that. The funniest part about this stuff is that I didn't find any ideas on how to pick the color in UX design guidelines from Microsoft -- they just tossed all sorts of toolbars (including Office Ribbon!) in the document.