Windows 8: a completely renewed interface
Table of contents:
- The day the Home button disappeared
- The game of differences, Windows7 vs Windows8
- What you see, you touch. The benefits of Modern UI
- Tactile conclusions layout with a mouse
- Special Windows 8 In Depth
The arrival of “tablets” like the iPad and many others of all colors, flavors and qualities, is marking a change of direction in the interface paradigm operating systems and applications. Microsoft, with its brand new Windows 8, does not want to be left behind and presents a powerful commitment to a profound transformation of the user experience.
The day the Home button disappeared
Since the BUILD event, in September 2010, where the Developer Preview version was presented for the first time for the very geeks of the development world in Microsoft technologies, the first impact that emerged was the disappearance of the well-known interface from the desk.Thus we find ourselves with a very different way of interacting with the operating system and the sample applications that it brought.
The loudest clamor of “ early adopters ” was undoubtedly led by the disappearance of the start button, which meant not being able to access the list of most used programs or the run bar which, in Windows 7, had become very useful.
We all sighed with relief when we saw that the “Desktop” part was very easy to access, and that it left almost everything in its previous place but with notable improvements such as the much more powerful Task Manager or adding the Ribbon in the File Manager.
Finally, the arrival in our hands of the first tablet with Windows 8 installed, along with the first glimpses of phones with Windows Phone 7, showed us the validity of the new Metro paradigm (now Modern UI) in a purely touch operation.
The game of differences, Windows7 vs Windows8
The first thing a Windows 7 user notices when starting a Windows 8 computer is that they get to the authentication screen much faster. Even, as is my case, having a computer that I've been doing tricks on for months and trying all kinds of software, the boot speed practically does not decrease over time.
The integration of this operating system with the Cloud is very important, so the ideal user account, if security and the company allow it, is to use our Microsoft LiveId. Since this way we can keep synchronized all the applications and devices that use these credentials.
And we fully enter Windows 8, in the Modern UI part, designed to be used by touch (with your fingers) and that allows us to access the applications and shortcuts that the default brings to the Interface.Obviously there is no possible comparison here with a Windows 7 that offers a Desktop by default. It is the first and clear warning that a very high bet is being made to change the way we interact with the computer (or any other device).
By clicking on the “Desktop/Desktop” button, or the Windows key, we access the interface thought and designed to be used with a mouse or similar pointer. This is where any current user finds almost everything on your site, but with a feeling that “something is missing”. And the reason is the disappearance of Aero, that graphic line full of shadows, volumes, transparencies and transition effects that has been converted into a simplified form with flat colors, highly efficient and simple.
We also found another difference: the RibbonThe action bar that has replaced the top menu in all Office applications and many others from Microsoft, which is now used in virtually all windows of the operating system. The best example, the file explorer, where its inclusion allows many more operations and is interactive with what we are doing.
Another very important improvement is the display of the status of file operations. From pop-up windows full of transparencies, and with text-based information, we have gone to graphs that show in real time the transfer speed, how much we have copied or moved and how much we still have left to finish.
Finally, the question that all first-time users of the new Operating System have asked ourselves is: how do I turn off the computer? When the start button disappeared, access to the icon from where we could perform operations such as hibernate, suspend or restart has also disappeared.Now comes into play, if we are both in ModernUI and on the desktop, the right sidebar or Chamer's bar , which can be accessed by pressing the Windows key + C .
Here we will have a series of icons, of dubious priority for most users, where we will find the “Settings” (a kind of cogwheel with a pointer in the center), from where we will access to the Power options. If it seems to you that the path to access this option is longer, don't worry because, like almost everything in Windows 8, it can be done in several ways, and there are faster ones to turn off our equipment.
What you see, you touch. The benefits of Modern UI
Apple's iPad has made it clear to the industry that the failure of TabletPCs had nothing to do with using a touch interface . And that, in fact, it is this way of interacting with a computer that has given it an overwhelming competitive advantage.
Windows 8 is an Operating System thought and designed for use with your fingers and has a complete collection of gestures to perform the most frequently used tasks. Starting from the 8 basic movements that can be seen in the image that heads the article, dozens of actions can be carried out, such as:Unlock the home screen by sliding your finger from the bottom edge.Authenticate in the system by means of a touch pattern in an initial image.Close an app by swiping from the top edge and releasing.Display the top or bottom menu of an app by swiping from the top edge.Change the view from portrait to landscape by physically rotating the tablet.Remove the "Charms" bar (forgive the Anglicism) by sliding your finger from the edge of the right towards the centerView the active applications, sliding your finger from the edge of the left towards the center.
That's without counting the pinch to zoom in or out on an image or text, or turn the page by sliding your fingers as if we were turning the page.
We must not forget about all kinds of keystrokes and sustained keystrokes, which allow you to choose and/or activate functions or access contextual menus.
Another advantage of Windows 8 is that it imbues all applications with a Modern UI style, where the paradigm that attention should not be distracted by anything , leads to a very special way of building the user experience in applications.
The concept of windows and desktop with icons with physical representation has been banished.
Everything is much more minimalist, with pleasant colors and fonts, with a very fluid operation by using asynchronous techniques to avoid annoying waits while the information is retrieved. And with standard movement effects that seek to homogenize user interaction, finding that the same gestures perform the same operations on all the software installed on our machines.
Tactile conclusions layout with a mouse
The first thing I would say, as a conclusion, is that visually and as an operating system it is a great step forward and a very important change of paradigm.
That being said, for users of tablets or touch devices, the possibilities for growth are very great and the future is very promising when they join the powerful machines based on PC chips, the lightweight and fast ARM tablets. Let's not forget, they won't have a desk.
The frustrating thing right now is the limited offering of Modern UI apps and the lack of the core products we're used to, including the ubiquitous Office.
For desktop users, Modern UI might be more of a nuisance than a boon right now, though we'll look at how it changes the way we use Windows from a desktop computer in a future article.Practically you don't go through the touch interface other than to start a program on the desktop In fact, Windows 2012 server users can feel the advantages of your proposal where the main interface is the classic one and the touch interface is relegated to the background until it is invoked.
The final feeling is that now there is a Windows for each type of user and device It is an ambitious Operating System that expands its borders to It can be used on practically any current device, producing the same user experience whether on your PC, on your console, on your mobile phone, on your tablet, etc.
