Will Metro Style Apps Take Off?
Personally, I’m torn about the prospect. Microsoft has moved from powerful, efficient GUI applications to simplistic, intuitive applications. I used to be able to do so much more in Excel without using the keyboards, or constantly switching between function buttons in the toolbar. For example, to switch windows from one spreadsheet to another all I had to do was type Alt w, 2. Now I have to click on the view menu item in the menu bar, click switch windows, and select the spreadsheet I want to move to…all forcing me to become a mouse cripple.
It’s not that I dislike a mouse; it’s that I like efficient ways to perform my work. And the new Metro look follows these same guiding principles for making applications “simpler” to use. I don’t think the people who come up with these specifications ever had to get anything meaningful done. Here is what I base this statement of simplicity of Metro on: Metro Design Principles…http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/hh781237. They have one principle that says, “Reduce redundancy in your UI.”
In previous GUI principles, the more ways you allowed a person to do something, the more usable your application became. If you could use a command key combination, a file menu option that could be used from menu hot keys, file menu options that could be selected by mouse, command buttons on the screen that could be clicked on or implemented by hot keys, you created an interface for which the user was able to select the optimum method to perform their work. I may be reading into this Metro specification more than it means…but seeing most web sites, and seeing how Metro tends to be more like a web GUI than a mature windowing operating system GUI, it feels like we have moved our design efforts to the lowest common denominator.
What do you think? Am I way out there, or just ranting without purpose. I’m all for change, and there is a lot of good stuff in the Metro design principles. Send me an email at btaylor@sswug.org with your take on a possible new future. Will windows applications become as dumb as a web application?
Cheers,
Ben
$$SWYNK$$
Featured White Paper(s)
SharePoint 2010 Enables the Enterprise
Written by KnowledgeLake
read more)