Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Is This The New Windows 8 UI? We Sure Hope Not

The folks over at Microsoft have released a new video showing of a radically new user interface that many are speculating could end up in Windows 8.

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In the above video, Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, shows off a new user interface that could conceivably be incorporated into Windows 8. This is pure speculation of course but it is certain that MS is working on some new radical designs.

As you can tell from the video this new interface is something out of this world for MS and a huge risk to say the least. Gone are the traditional taskbar, start menu and icons that are all to familiar to traditional operating systems. In their place are "bubbles" that interact with files and post streaming information off the internet.

Bubbles are auto-generated in various categories (personal, entertainment, gaming, etc.) and can also be created by a user. Clicking on a bubble brings up a program or interaction item. For example clicking on a bubble for an upcoming flight will display alternate flight times with weather-based probability for delays. Users could use the interface to switch their flight, should the desire.

From my perspective it looks like it would be a very user friendly touch interface but hardly one meant for a traditional desktop. Many sites have already reported that Windows 8 is getting a new UI make over and the main interface will be codenamed “Wind" and is supposedly going to incorporate more 3d effects but I really question that this would be it. It could be a new UI for touch specific devices but I doubt MS would take this big a risk on their desktop OS. I like the idea of real-time updates but I'm not big on the "bubbles" look. I recall seeing a website out there awhile back that had this type of interface and it was too easy to get lost jumping from place to place.

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