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Microsoft Vista User Interface Guidelines Published
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Sep 23, 2006 12:56 AM
from the looks-better dept.
from the looks-better dept.
SEMW writes "Microsoft has published the preliminary Official User Interface Guidelines for Windows Vista. Highlights include Top 12 Rules for the Windows Vista User Experience — and the use of screenshots from Windows XP as examples of what not to do. The full guidelines are as yet incomplete, but what is there makes for interesting reading."
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Microsoft Vista User Interface Guidelines Published
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Breaking your own rules (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.peppermill-marketing.com/)
Rule 11 (Score:1)
(http://www.aedanmcg....ch/win_switcher.html)
What about "Everyone is called Bruce."?
Re:Rule 11 (Score:5, Funny)
But will MS follow their own rules? Hold on a sec . . .
Anyway, given the many complaints on Vista's security, it would seem MS isn't following their own rules--
While there maybe good reason to lock down Vista, you would think that MS would make it less annoying--
WTF? %$%#&@!
This made me laugh. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This made me laugh. (Score:5, Funny)
You mean Vista is doing away with DRM?!
About damned time!
Re:This made me laugh. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.brynmosher.com/ | Last Journal: Monday August 27, @10:15PM)
Re:This made me laugh. (Score:5, Funny)
KFG
The Rules: (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.soundepartment.com/)
Re:The Rules: (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.soundepartment.com/)
My thoughts:
Use the Aero Theme and System Font (Segoe UI)
Good, but obvious.
Use common controls and common dialogs
ibid
Use the standard window frame, use glass (transparency) judiciously
Good good. If MS keeps making such a big deal about transparent UI tho, silly developers are gonna use it everywhere.
Use icons and graphics consistent with the Windows Vista style and quality
Good. If you follow this suggestion closely enough, maybe we can convince the users at home that your application comes from Microsoft, too.
Use task dialogs for new or frequently used dialog boxes and error messages
Good.
Use Aero Wizards
If you're replacing a 97 Wizard, you should use an Aero wizard. If you're writing a new app, please do not use a wizard. They're obnoxious, and send the message: "We didn't know how to organize your options in any sort of logical way, so here's a powerpoint that lets you fill in the blanks, masquearding as a UI."
Use Explorer-hosted, navigation-based user interfaces, provide a Back button
In short: Consider making programs that aren't web browsers behave like web browsers, since people use those alot. This is interesting, but at some point you have to explain the difference between the "Back" button and the "Undo" button, and you might just end up making your program into a wizard
Use the standard Windows Search (have a little iTunes style search box in your window's corner when appropriate)
A total dig on my part, and I apologize, but that's basically what they're saying. Apple makes the same recommendation, and give a very slick API for making it work. So good suggestion.
Use the Windows Vista tone in all UI text (use a professional writing style in you informative text)
From Microsofts mouth to ghod's ears.
Clean up the user interface
On their page they list all kinds of things you can do to make your program more ergonomic, but they put it at the end of the list, and phrase it in such a way as to suggest that it should be something you do at the end of development, as opposed to at the beginning, when you're designing your windows on a whiteboard. "Organize your command (sic) into a simple, predictable, and easy to find presentation" is something you do before you start writing code- it is not something you do while "cleaning up".
Use notifications judiciously
Or not at all. The list makes no suggestion about keeping your damn icons out of the systray.
Reserve development time for "fit and finish"!
Fit and Finish has quickly become my least favorite phrase. Sorry, just snarky, I agree with this point. But I would say "Hire a designer" as opposed to "reserve development time", mainly because it will allow collaboration with someone who always has their eyes on the UI and can give the developers continual feedback on how their code is totally rocking for the user ... experience, or totally deviating from reality.
Re:The Rules: (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://kestas.kuliukas.com/)
Wizards are like many UI constructs; they are often abused but they can be very useful. Access data import Wizards, installation Wizards, Visual Studio database creation Wizards, etc.
Whenever you need the user to enter a series of logically grouped options before you can begin to do what the user wants a Wizard is the way to go. It's either going to be a Wizard, or a large unwieldy dialog box.
I think Microsoft's suggestions here are all good, but of course if you're the sort of developer that has to read them you're probably the sort of developer which doesn't care about the UI and won't implement them anyway. Which is a shame, because the UI can go a long way to make your program better.
Wow... (Score:5, Funny)
Motivation (Score:1, Funny)
They really did this because of the copyright issues [slashdot.org] concerning tree views...good old Microsoft. Always watching their ass. (^_~)
Guideline #1... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://youtube.com/thedarkener)
user Rule #1 (Score:5, Funny)
user Rule #2 (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.vems.co.nz/)
Lots of pointless rules... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you thought Clippy was bad before, just wait until he *becomes* the OS that is Windows Vista.
Restart now? (Score:5, Funny)
Updates complete. Restart now?
What about now?
Now?
Now?
Now?
Just wanted to know if I should restart now?
What about now?
Are you ready to restart?
Shall I restart now?
Should I not restart later?
I think I should restart now.
Wouldn't it be good if I restarted now?
Who's up for a restart??
Re:Restart now? (Score:4, Informative)
Just use the source (Score:1)
To do it right... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Sunday November 05 2006, @05:31AM)
Step Two: get your UI reviewed by Apple's user interface evangelist, John Geleynse.
Step Three: make all the changes recommended by Apple.
Step Four: write a windows app that comes as close as you can get to your Mac version.
Or, you can do what the people who wrote Visio or that guy who ripped off Delicious Library did, and just laboriously copy an existing app knowing that you'll never make it quite the same on Windows.
-jcr
Thank You Microsoft! (Score:5, Interesting)
How I hate software that install all of that in their Start Menu entries. Or programs that insist they go into "C:\Program Files\My Stupid Software Company Inc\My Stupid Program".
Talking about reform, I find the most illogical thing of user interfaces is the menubar.. how do you exit? Go to "File". Where are the options? Under "Tools".. why can't somebody offer a totally new way of making the menu. Start with "Program", where you have "Options" and "About" (maybe "Help" too), then "Document" or "File", and then "Edit", etc.. We're so used to File -> Exit that we stop thinking how illogical such a construct is... exit the file?
Re:Thank You Microsoft! (Score:4, Informative)
It may be worth noting that you've just described the current Mac OS X menubar layout.
Can't blame you; I think it makes more sense too. In fact, most of the Vista guide seems to have similar aspirations (which is my way of recognizing that, even though it looks like a complete rip, it may not be).
Integrity? (Score:4, Insightful)
From the article:
Mind your icons, not your buffer overflows. Great! Will exploits follow the Vista guidelines too ?
Two things catched my eye (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.lingnu.com/)
The second is that this document carries a severe undertone of "make sure your app only works on Vista, and looks out of place on anything other than Aero". The entire document keeps saying "use Vista only API whenever you can" and "visually design the application to look out of place when not using the Vista UI" (with a few exceptions).
I guess this is how MS are trying to fight the competition formed by previous OSes being good enough. They try to make sure new applications don't work on them any more.
Shachar
Just wrapped it up tonight (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.imwithfred.com/)
I found Vista to be too heavy on the eye candy, and it seemed that "power tools" and control panel received heavy design attention, while the ~deeper~ apps like regedit and msconfig are the same old barf. Vista = skinned XP != new OS. Meh. Shiny? Yes. New? No.
Slow everyone down... (Score:2)
"For all controls, select the safest (to prevent loss of data or system access), most secure value by default."
In other words, treat the user like they don't know what they're doing. Slow *everyone* down, in order to save the idiots.
I really like knowing that when a dialog box pops up, the enter key will usually complete the task that I requested in the first place.
Boring (Score:1)
bye, krajo
Prime Directive... (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.creimer.ws/ | Last Journal: Friday January 26 2007, @12:40PM)
*cough*
Evil interface design acceptable if you're writing an application, virus or spyware.
Self Help Document (Score:1)
broken their own rule one in rule one (Score:2)
Now if only they followed these "rules" themselves (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Rule 13: annoyance level = high by default (Score:1)
I myself have always looked for the button/menu to change this level to low. Haven't found it sofar. Will let you know when I do.
the best bit (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Wednesday September 20 2006, @10:30AM)
"# Focus on what users really need to know. Don't avoid important text--be explicit whenever necessary--but don't be redundant or verbose. Because users often scan text, make every word count. Simple, concise text not only saves screen space, it most effectively conveys an important idea or action.
# Remove redundant text. Look for redundant text in window titles, main instructions, supplemental instructions, content areas, command links, and commit buttons. Generally, leave full text in instructions and interactive controls, and remove any redundancy from the other places.
glad to see MS don't break their own rules!
Random observations (Score:1)
(http://www.iki.fi/wwwwolf/)
...and in the example, it turns "Enable Internet Connection Sharing Host" and "Manual duplex" to "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection" and "Print on both sides of the paper".
I agree on the principle, but it's funny how they chose both bad example and good example on how to use this rule.
"Manual duplex" is a bad way of saying "Print on both sides of the paper", it doesn't mean much if you take it out of context (my first thoughts were "there's still modems where you need to switch sending and receiving manually?"). But the ICS example is just too simplified. It's hard to read. Imagine hunting for the ICS option from a huge dialog. You need to read a lot of these "easy explanation" options. Too many words. "Share this computer's Internet connection" would be better.
The task-based language is okay, but in a lot of places in XP, I've found Microsoft is overdoing it and making the thing harder to use, rather than easier. Task descriptions just shouldn't get too wordy. If a longer explanation is needed, tooltips are there.
Ah, so Microsoft's stated goal of using my-spam is to create a friendlier atmosphere. I'm thinking they kind of succeed too well on that.
Must... refrain... from... joking... MyComputerMyFilesMyDuploBricks! Arrrrggggh. Sorry.
Security First? (Score:1)
Shneiderman's Eight Golden Rules (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.alioth.net/ | Last Journal: Friday November 09, @03:53PM)
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/almstrum/cs370/elv
Am I the only one who doesn't want a "user experience"? If I'm getting an "experience", the damned user interface is getting in my way. I just want to get the job done, not have an "experience".
Consistant MS thoughts on the menu bar... (Score:1)
(http://www.nostuff.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 07, @05:40AM)
"For programs that create or view documents, use the standard menu categories such as File, Edit, View, Tools, and Help." (part of rule 10).
From the shell blog (posted to
"However, menus can be used inappropriately - particularly when developers slavish follow the File/Edit/View//help pattern. These standard menus are really designed for document-based applications, where there is a lot of saving, printing, cutting, pasting, and window management going on."
http://shellrevealed.com/blogs/shellblog/archive/
Bit of a contradiction there, but I can see the argument for both. 'File' has become the generic application menu, e.g. web browsers - which only deal with files in a limited way - have a file menu, so does basically any other app. It's just a badly named menu entry. As ever OS X gets this right (the first menu entry is named after the app).
To be fair to MS, one is the official useability guidelines, the other is an informal blog, it's probably better than MS not allowing their staff to blog incase such contradictions come out.
Microsoft offering UI design guidleines? (Score:2, Funny)
A funny Vista UI picture. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.marcorolandi.com/imgs/just4fun.jpg [marcorolandi.com]
I don't know if the meaning of word 'consistency' has been changed lately...do you?
Rule 2 - Typo or just not caring? (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Thursday October 03 2002, @10:12AM)
Do the guys writing this understand English or do they just not care about writing coherent sentences / proofreading?
Yes/No dialogs again (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the worst misfeatures of Windows (and its developer community) is the retarded design of dialogs. AFAIK the pre-Vista API has a bunch a simple functions to do Yes/No and Ok/Cancel dialogs, but nothing to label buttons sensibly. So it's quite common to have a dialog with "Yes" and "No" buttons, and and huge text explaining what these options mean. Despite the fact that every at least semi-decent article or book about dialog design recommends to use verbs for button labels.
I recently read [msdn.com] that Vista finally offers an API to easily change the button labels. Yeah! And guideline 5 (Use task dialogs for new or frequently used dialog boxes and error messages [microsoft.com]) specifically recommends:
Yeah again!
However, above this guideline we can see a screenshot of the classic, super retarded Windowesque "Save changes? Yes/No/Cancel" dialog.
I suggest for the final document they just copy this dialog from any random Mac OS application and put a Vista theme on it.
I have one for Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.flying-rhenquest.net/)
Now if an application were written properly this wouldn't be an issue -- the application would have a thread dedicated to UI work and in theory the interface should be highly responsive, but you're trusting all the application developers to implement their programs properly and not even Microsoft is capable of setting a good example. Their OS would almost not suck if they'd just fix this one design flaw and I'm going to keep blowing this horn until they do.
Still, they make the same error (Score:4, Informative)
(http://contact-centers.blogspot.com/)
People are afraid of doing things wrong. Especially at a computer, as they have learned that a computer is *VERY* unforgiving. Turn it off, and your document isn't saved, you get chkdsk errors, your operating system does not start, you have to pay your local guru big bucks or a bottle of wine to keep the damn thing running. Turn the TV off and on again and it all works. You need to treat the computer with respect. So you say (err - click) yes to it - all of the time.
Do you want to save the document: Yes
Do you want do delete the folder: Yes (o shit)
Do you want to uninstall this application: Yes (where were these disks again)
Do you want to format this disk: Yes
Now, look at gnome. That interface is talking to you in a quite different way. When you close gedit (the notepad equivalent) without saving, it will tell you
Do you want to save the document 'xyz'
If you don't save it, your changes of the last n seconds will be lost
[Don't Save] [Cancel] [Save]
Now that is informative, and i really have to make a meaningful choice. I need to choose between Save and Don't Save. Or I pick cancel which will surely take me back to the previous state.
Much better than the windows common control, which has been devised in Windows 2.0 (I kid you not) and still in Windows fscking Vista, noone has had the courage to reread 'About Face' and reshape it.
Sigh
Mark
Too little, too late (Score:2)
And they aren't even the final version.
Here's one for everyone, including Apple (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday February 05 2005, @03:50AM)
Be consistent in the use of the UI:
- Apple screwed up badly in recent times, with having a mixture of Aqua, Metal, new Aqua and whatever else.
- Microsoft also screwed up in Windows XP with having a mixture of different open dialogs, for essentially doing the same thing.
Don't dumb it down. Not all your users are dumb. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.sbyrne.org/)
This tendancy annoys me more and more with ever release of Windows, for many reasons:
1) Most everybody knows what "duplex" means. Why not let those who don't learn what it means instead of pretending the word doesn't exist, and encouraging people to forget.
2) When I am on the phone with a user, I can say "look for the options that says something like "Internet Connection Sharing". Most users will not find the goal-based option, as it does not include the word "sharing".
3) I know what I'm looking for. I know what it was called in NT4, 2000, and 2003 server. Now I have to read paragraphs and guess that "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection" is Internet Connection Sharing and not Web Proxy.
4) It encourages the user to not learn about the very complex piece of equipment he just bought. If you provide a good searchable manual instead of dumbing everything down, the program will be easier to use, and the user will learn more.
Imagine if your grill didn't say "Ignite" above the red button, but "Make the fire start", or if your toaster didn't say "Toast", but "Make your bread crispy", or if your car didn't say "ABS", but "Automatically remove and reapply pressure on the brake so your car doesn't skid. Don't pump your brakes".
This is slashdot, so I need to reference either Orwell or Rand:
Or are they trying to reduce English to a smaller set of simple words that everybody can understand? Double-plus ungood.
LMAO, DRM Etiquette (Score:1, Troll)
(http://lists.clickers.org/linuxsig/index.html | Last Journal: Friday November 09, @11:00PM)
Be polite, supportive, and encouraging. The user should never feel condescended to, blamed, or intimidated.
Acceptable: Cannot delete New Text Document: Access is denied.
Better: This file is protected and cannot be deleted without specific permission.
There you go, you need to be polite and supportive when you tell the user they can't do what they want to do. Instructions won't do any good because there is no way to get the thing done. The user then only has to remember the sounds of crashing chairs and "I'm going to fucking kill Google! I've done it before and I'm going to do it again."
Don't foreget that when your computer is really slow, pops up images of American Express Cards and naked ladies at random, it's all your fault, you stupid little shit, you visited the wrong site and downloaded things you should not have. Please don't feel condescended to, blamed, or intimidated as company representatives tell you this over and over.
What a bunch of double talk.
so can (Score:1)
(http://www.in-egypt.net/ | Last Journal: Wednesday January 31 2007, @09:10AM)
Microsoft becoming Sirius Cybernetics? (Score:2, Funny)
"Happy Service!"
Rule 9 (Score:1)
Write Multiple Copies of Your Applications? (Score:2)
I wish Microsoft would expand the scope of the article to not only how to write applications to leverage the "Vista experience", but also to author your applications so that they will properly levergage any updates to standard libraries (current and forthcoming) so that if your applications is loaded onto Windows 2K, XP or Vista; the user will have a consistent experience.
In Microsoft's view of the world, all corporations will update to Vista the day after it is released. In reality, many are still running "legacy" OS's. Letting us know which standard libraries, fonts, etc. will be propogated to older OS's that are still in use will help developers create applications that an organization can deploy without fear of incompatibility.
One example is the new Aero wizard. Will versions of this control be available on XP/2K? Or are we supposed to build different versions of an app for different OS's? (disclaimer, I have not yet done any research on this, so if this is a poor example, appologies in advance)
Icon problem (Score:1)
Select icons based on meaning, not appearance. Make sure that your icons have consistent meaning throughout your application and don't conflict with existing icons or conventions in the system, or in other commonly used Windows-based applications.
Please MS. folk, read this and switch IE incon for any kind of bug... a fly fits perfectly!!!My Biggest Pet Peeve (Score:2)
Finally, they're taking aim at something I despise on Windows XP.
I hate when applications make trees to put one program into it. Useless! Now we just need the designers to follow this spec.
Feature advertisements bad?? (Score:1)
Clippit, anyone?
Maybe they need a guide on how NOT to write guides (Score:1)
(http://www.voxelsoft.com/)
Say, what?
Good guidelines (Score:1)
Re:Lovely (Score:2)
(http://www.gekidoslair.com/)
i'm wary that they are encouraging developers to pop up yet more of these stupid balloon notification messages though...they're annoying enough in XP, can't wait until every 2 seconds you have a balloon popping up asking one thing or another.
the other hilarious thing is microsoft trying to tell people what 'cool' is in respect to application design. yikes
Re:Media player (Score:3)
let me know when you find a linux distro for home users where media play is not part of the core experience
Re:Any They Missed (Score:2)
...which was, I think, recommended by Apple [apple.com] before being popular on other systems. (See "Buttons for addressing the alert".)
Of course, "on Linux" in this context really means "in GNOME" or "in KDE" or ..... The GNOME Human Interface Guidelines [gnome.org] make the same suggestion about button labels [gnome.org], which I think they took from the OS X HIG. The KDE HIG [kde.org] also suggests buttons with verbs. I don't know what other DEs or toolkits recommend (if anything) or support.
Then again, even one of Microsoft's HIGs [microsoft.com] suggests that, albeit not as strongly (look for "Dialog Box Commands"). For that matter, so does the Vista HIG [microsoft.com] (look for "Use positive commit buttons").
Re:Any They Missed (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Wednesday February 25 2004, @11:29AM)