Hopefully Microsoft Will Heed the Warnings Here. It is a Big Deal.
Today MaryJo Foley, the analyst at ZDNet who covers Microsoft, had some thoughts about the Metro UI and what is right and wrong with it.
I don’t know how long it took for her to write her post, but it very well thought out and is spot on. After loading up the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, I tried to use it Metro-style for awhile, and became frustrated with the “hunt”. It was tiring, if that makes sense. Constantly, you are required to search for even the most frequently used controls in the apps you use most. I would strongly recommend you read her post if you are interested in an analysis of what is coming with Windows 8.
Windows 8: Does Metro actually work?
These problems can be easily remedied. By just revealing the secondary layers of information/navigation by default out of the box when it ships. Once someone has used Metro for awhile, they can hide everything.
I switched from an iPhone 4S to the Lumia 900 and am glad I did (even though I miss InstaGram and the music player I never have to think about how to use) and like the metro versions of several apps I am using (Banking, LinkedIn, Metro Radio Pro for Pandora). The desktop version of Metro needs to be able to be either de-selected by default, or create some kind of “convergence” view like the one in Parallels 7 for Mac. There both sets of UI navigation elements for OS X and Win7 coexist.
I am bullish on MSFT, but they CAN’T ship this with the defaults all set the way they are in the Consumer Preview.
