Modernizing input in Windows 8

re: Modernizing input in Windows 8

Burak — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 21:28:24 GMT

Honestly, I don’t know how to proceed further unless we can access fully detailed UX design guides or equivalent MSDN literature, like the ones we could refer to in previous Windows versions. As designers www.mirkon.com.tr/bireysel.aspx and developers, we must be in a position to take decisions upfront, not to be rejected by - totally justified - quality assurance processes downstream.

re: Modernizing input in Windows 8

mohsin — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 05:51:03 GMT

Honestly, I don’t know how to proceed further unless we can access fully detailed UX design guides or equivalent MSDN literature, like the ones we could refer to in previous Windows versions. As designers and developers, we must be in a position to take decisions upfront, not to be rejected by - totally justified - quality assurance processes downstream.

re: Modernizing input in Windows 8

Steve — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 11:16:24 GMT

Dear Reed,

Thank you for taking the time to answer: your advice provides indeed some additional hints about how to proceed.

Many developers are eager to port their application under Windows 8 - WinRT. However, the compliance about UI experience for store-certified applications generates so many open-ended questions once you proceed into the details of an application. It is also my current practice that the answers – including from Microsoft UI design experts in one to one sessions (e.g.) – varies substantially from one individual to another. Finally, an element of subjectivity is certainly not absent from the whole process.

Presently, my team is not in a position where I can justify to my hierarchy porting a series of traditional applications without having more detailed information about what can(not) / what must(not) be done from a UI experience viewpoint. Such information is simply not available even when all knowledgeable resources are being solicited. The ambient vagueness and contradictions in the matter also compound the many doubts we have.

Honestly, I don’t know how to proceed further unless we can access fully detailed UX design guides or equivalent MSDN literature, like the ones we could refer to in previous Windows versions. As designers and developers, we must be in a position to take decisions upfront, not to be rejected by - totally justified - quality assurance processes downstream.

The sooner that information - in a non-ambiguous manner – will be available, the faster applications will find their way into the Windows8 - WinRT ecosystem. Be assured we will continue to eagerly monitor any such source of knowledge in the coming months.

Kind regards, Steve

re: Modernizing input in Windows 8

Reed Townsend [MSFT] — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 21:16:33 GMT

Steve – Great question. The Store requirement is that all app functionality must be available through touch, mouse, and keyboard. We don’t explicitly specify how it should be done.

The general recommendation is to focus the design on touch-first usage. You have to start with one input, and it’s easier to make a touch UI work well for mouse/kb than the other way around. You can then use a few techniques to tune for mouse:

- Use the standard Win8 mouse interactions. E.g. right click to show/hide app chrome, scrollwheel scrolls views as expected, etc.

- For touch interactions that aren’t possible with mouse or are cumbersome with mouse you can:

o If it’s a common scenario, you can show mouse-specific UI on mouse move (and hide after a timeout or when you see touch events). A benefit of this design pattern is that it can keep the UI clean even for mouse only users – there’s no need to show a scrollbar unless the user actually wants to use it.

o If it’s not a very common scenario, you can provide UI elements to perform the functionality. For example, a button in the app bar.

The goal is to avoid special modes for touch/mouse/keyboard. Instead the UI dynamically adapts to the different input methods. We know users will switch input methods based on task, context, and ergonomics. We want this switch to be fast and fluid. Requiring an explicit UI-mode change works against that goal. On the other hand, we also have a lot of devices that only support some forms of input (mouse/keyboard desktops, touch-only slates, etc), and that’s why it’s so important to make all functionality available to all input methods.

This doesn’t mean that all input methods need to be as efficient at all tasks. The selection example is a good one: Keyboard could support ctrl+a as a way to select all the items in a list at once. That doesn’t mean that you necessarily need to add a select all shortcut for touch. You can complete the same scenario using touch by swiping each item to select it. However, if you think that select all is an important scenario you could instead add a touch way to do that when you designing your app for touch-first (e.g. a button in the appbar).

Pen is a little different. We’re focusing on devices that already support touch, and while using a pen you’ll commonly have touch easily available. So instead of duplicating touch functionality with pen we recommend that you use pen to add additional value. Like the above example, where you could use touch for navigation and pen for immediate inking.

For more info on this, JK did a UX workshop that covers tips for designing a UI for touch, mouse, and keyboard. You might find it helpful: www.windowsuserexperiencetraining.com/.../WUX-004

Thanks,

- Reed

re: Modernizing input in Windows 8

Jack Auto — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 20:37:04 GMT

Is there any support for the standard Media Centre remote control in metro? How would I code for that?

re: Modernizing input in Windows 8

Steve — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 08:36:54 GMT

Hi Reed,

Very informative ! I have a question with regards to the statement "mouse might have a traditional selection model."

To the best of your knowledge, can a Store certified application (msdn.microsoft.com/.../hh694083.aspx) exhibit specific behavior depending on the input technique (e.g. keyboard, mouse, touch) being used? If I restrict this to the mouse example, it would mean that a touch would perform select / deselect one item at a time whilst the mouse+keyboard (Shift & Control keys) would select / deselect multiple items at once.

Pursuing this, we could have the same application exhibit larger textboxes when operating in touch mode and smaller textboxes when operating in mouse mode (e.g. to select one or more characters), etc. etc. : the list of differentiators is practically endless.

My belief is that such dual approach is not permitted for store certified applications : they must exhibit a "unified behavior" which is touch-centric in essence. Or is it so that "duality" is permitted as long as a touch experience _is_ provided as well, even if the mouse experience (e.g.) is different from it (see selection behavior)? But I might be wrong.

This matter is really most confusing : developers say "you can do it" whilst designers say "you must not do it"

Thanks for your advice.

re: Modernizing input in Windows 8

Luka Z. Radunovic — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 05:15:02 GMT

One thing i understand about Windows 8 and that is consumer oriented and not productivity oriented therefore Windows 7 seems like more reasonable option for me.

re: Modernizing input in Windows 8

Luka Z. Radunovic — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 05:14:00 GMT

Metro is still not usable on Desktop with mouse and keyboard because the way Metro apps are written. For example to close Metro app requires such unnatural mouse gesture where with little X button would be just click away.

Windows 8 is strange things where ends up not being good for anything.

re: Modernizing input in Windows 8

Windows 8 = big fail...here's the proof — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 04:34:35 GMT

Am not trolling but Microsoft please look at all the Windows 8 satisfaction survey out there on neowin, pcmag etc. More than 50% are uhappy with that ugly Metro UI. While it's good for tablet, we desktop users don't need that crap. It's just useless and lack of productivity means Windows 8 is in a big trouble. Here's the proof:

Windows 8 Surveys:

Half Who Have Tried the OS Wouldn't Recommend It:

www.pcworld.com/.../windows_8_survey_half_who_have_tried_the_os_wouldnt_recommend_it.html

Will you buy Windows 8? 59.2% said no

www.neowin.net/.../weekend-poll-will-you-buy-windows-8

No 64% / Yes 36% Makeuseof

No 81% / Yes 19% Overclocked

No 56% / Yes 44% ZDNet

Seems like Microsoft is cooking another Vista and the trend of major release failures and as usual, pay for a fix strategy is going to continue...

re: Modernizing input in Windows 8

small_mountain_0705 — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 01:59:26 GMT

Thanks, Reed. It's nice to see the desktop not getting forgotten. I hope you guys have a dev conference planned for this Fall; it seems like there will be much to discuss.

Eric