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Randy Holloway at Microsoft

Blogging from the field.
Longhorn UI Backlash?
Mike G., a person I respect tremendously, slams Scoble for his comments on the Longhorn UI. I think I'm somewhere in the middle of this discussion. While I do tire a little of all of this Longhorn UI discussion, I do think that the big breakthroughs in computing over the next five years are going to come in the ways we interact with them. The average user may benefit tremendously from UI improvements, provided that they're about more than just looking "cool". When I went to Redmond last October, there were some interesting things that I saw coming out of MSR that relate to improving the UI to accomodate for much larger monitors (wall-sized). To me, that will make a positive difference in the way people interact with the computer in the future. So while its not useful today and doesn't resolve some of my current pain, I assume that MS is continuing to invest in resolving those issues while innovating in user interaction and UI design.
Posted: Monday, March 22, 2004 10:12 AM by RandyHolloway

Comments

Sam said:

I don't think theres anything bad about 'cool' features. If you think about application features that you really like, its the really 'cool' features that you remember...
# March 22, 2004 11:02 AM

adamw said:

My primary problem from what I've seen of the Longhorn UI systems (Avalon etc) is that it’s a good technical foundation that will probably be grossly misused.

The web is all too often an inconsistent nightmare of sites all behaving differently - at the moment, Common Controls, and the "barrier to entry" of writing your own themes ensures that there is a commonality between all windows applications. Having "designers" sticking their 2c in for every dialog could easily result in every single application being an unusable mess, totally different from every other application, until trying to work on your own local desktop is a battle against Billy the designer who thinks you should all use fixed width gadgets’s, and Barry the designer deciding that all his buttons need to be shiny, red and animated.

Maybe that’s why I’m drawn more and more towards terminals these days…
# March 22, 2004 11:03 AM

Jeff said:

Mike needs to settle down. It's clear to me that Scoble was making a funny at the expense of the car manufacturer.

Design matters. Ask Apple. Why do you think people are willing to pay a premium for iPods? Because the UI is elegant, and the competition's absolutely sucks (check out that Dell unit to see what I mean).

Regarding the fear of a UI "nightmare," I think that's an unfounded panic. Look at the top ten sites your visit frequently. I bet you anything that they have nearly the same navigation template in each case.
# March 22, 2004 12:13 PM

Enjoy Every Sandwich said:

Take Outs for 22 March 2004.
# March 22, 2004 9:57 PM

Sean said:

Shouldn't the user be able to what his UI looks like and how to interact with it?
# March 27, 2004 2:35 PM

Randy H. said:

Absolutely. But elegance in UI design should enable users to have the "right" choices, on those things that will help them to be productive or enjoy their experience more. Longhorn's UI (the one we're waiting for) should allow for that.
# March 27, 2004 5:50 PM
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