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Windows Vista RTM Lab >> (R)evolution of the User Interface - Secrets behind Windows Aero

Tjoerd Hoek, one of the “User Experience” chef designers, is fun as always: In his session he explains how Microsoft designed the Windows Vista user interface and what thoughts have gone into the process...

The designing of Windows Vista was focussed on bringing “real” changes to the interface: A lot of third-party applications out there just change the interface in order for it to look new and call it “V2”. But in most cases it is just “different” and not “better”. With Windows Vista Microsoft decided to change things for the better: For example, in Windows Vista you will find a new “Save as” dialogue which has been designed to resemble the Windows-Explorer instead of using a more different interface such as in Windows XP. Microsoft also tries to bring more consistency into its applications by using color schemes: For example media tools (e.g. Media Player, DVD Maker) are using a black theme while internet and collaboration tols are blue. Explorers are kept in the typical Vista green.

Different color schemes for Vista applications

Dreams of a thousand start buttons
Tjoerd explains the difficulty of design the start button which apparently was one of the most difficult parts in the design process since the button has a high recognition value and was introduced back in Windows 95. So what they did was: They tried all kinds of different shapes - curvy, edgy or and finally round. Of course they had to make sure the start button looks good with each and every wallpaper and because of that hundreds of different start button designs were created until the final one, the one you see in Vista, appeared...