New Start Screen Animations?

zombiegator

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Hello Everyone, I just want your honest opinions, don't the new start screen animations look a lot like IOS? you know the whole idea of exploding when you open an app and coming back together when you close an app? What do you guys think? I personally like the animations the way they are now but change might be a good thing.
 

ven07

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Tbh I don't really care :D as long as it works, I'm all good. IOS, Android & WP are copying/borrowing/renewing (or whatever word you want to use) UI elements from each other. As long as it works, I say go for it, but there are others who would disagree with me lol
 

xandros9

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I didn't make the iOS connection until a few minutes ago when I realized it.

I liked how iOS 7+ did it, I like how 10 is going with this, etc.
 

Kram Sacul

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They remind me of the animations on my old Android phone from 2011. Lazy and uninspired at best. Part of the charm of WP was all the quick, fluid and elegant turn style animations. In comparison W10M feels like a 3rd party WP themed launcher running on top of Android 4.0.
 

drtek

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Hello Everyone, I just want your honest opinions, don't the new start screen animations look a lot like IOS? you know the whole idea of exploding when you open an app and coming back together when you close an app? What do you guys think? I personally like the animations the way they are now but change might be a good thing.

I don't see the animation you're speaking of. I have a 1020. Would that make a difference?
 

a5cent

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The animations in WP were, at least according to the original designers, always more than just eye candy. Let's take the turnstile animations as an example. Much like a web app, WP apps are composed of a collection of pages. When you navigate from one page to another, you're often presented with the turnstile animation that looks somewhat like the turning of a page in a book. Press the back button, and it turns the page back. By itself this isn't that meaningful, but when those animations are tied to what is actually going on under the hood, they do acquire meaning:

  • A page forward animation symbolizes the placement of a new page on the back stack.
  • A page backward animation symbolizes a page being removed from the back stack.
  • No turnstile animation means the interaction that just occurred didn't modify the back stack.
I couldn't care less about the particular animations themselves, but I do care about visual cues like this being used in a consistent and meaningful way, and at least somewhat trying to reflect what's going on under the hood. It's admittedly a small thing, but when combined with a dozen other such conventions, this becomes quite powerful, e.g. pivots represent users sliding different sections of a single page into view. Most users intuitively realize that a pivot control leaves them on the same page, no matter how many sections they pivot to, which in turn makes it clear what to expect of the back button. These animations, in part, help clarify that the back button won't take us back to the pivot section we were previously viewing, but back an entire page. As long as this is consistent, we can confidently guess what the back button will do, without having to test the back button's behaviour in every app. It's the way different content is animated into view that tells us all this. The combination of these things subconsciously provides users with navigational context.

The new animations in W10M seem to be nothing but eye candy in comparison. They have no meaning and serve no purpose other than replacing screen content in a visually pleasing way. Threads like "the circle animation is awesome" tell me people are largely oblivious to most of this, but there are nevertheless many who "feel" this, even if they can't put it into words. It's the "feel" part of a UI's look&feel.

Our brains all work differently, and mine quickly latches on to this type of thing. It's in part how I learn to use software, and the more such conventions a UI consistently provides, the quicker I can learn to use it. At least for me, many of these seemingly trivial changes in W10M do make the OS significantly less enjoyable to use. At least to my brain, it's not at all about familiarity or aesthetic appeal. I can deal with WP's UI providing less navigational context, and I can get used to it, in the same way I can get used to driving an entry level car. I'd just rather not have to. I'd prefer an OS update to be better at providing that type of navigational context. If it isn't, it's a downgrade, at least for me.

I don't care about the "hey, this looks awesome/ugly" statements. I do want the visual queues provided by the UI to be as consistent and meaningful as possible however. This is how I'll be judging all of W10M's UI.
 
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zombiegator

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I don't see the animation you're speaking of. I have a 1020. Would that make a difference?

I'm just talking in general. In one of the recent article postings on Windows central there is a video with the new animations, not everyone in their preview build has it.
 

Alfa Kapa

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I think that iOS animations are genius.
Even if I have used iPhones for very short period of time, zooming in the app you've selected and back out the menu when pressing the home button seems really simple, clever and well thought out.

Closing almost a year with WP, the transitions of WP8.1 although quick, fluid and ''over the top'' on the first month of use, they very quickly start to feel overdone and tiresome, especially in circumstances that you have little to no time to use the phone.

WP8.1 (from WP7 era) animations worked that way because Microsoft wanted the look and feel of 3rd party apps, to be the same with the rest of the OS, so it felt like a continuous line of apps going from left to right (this is indicated also from the app switcher where the last used apps are on the left of your current one).
But this concept (all apps having similar look and feel with the OS) doesn't work out for MS and on the passage of time 3rd party apps started to have their own look and feel. So the continuous line animations of WP8.1 feels out of place and kind of dated.

The new transitions in W10m, although I've installed it on a 630 (which has bigger loading times than the average WP due to 512mb of ram) feel really organic with the OS and work in it's advantage in order to show you the path you took from the start screen till your current screen.
On W10m it is clear that MS is taking the same direction of Android and iOS, which sets the OS as a canvas to access the apps you want.
The animations are clearly showing now with visual clues that you are going in the app, a layer up, a layer down and back out again.

Call me crazy but this small thing might help many people to choose a Windows Phone,
because the main disadvantage of WP8.1 was that people trying to use it for the first time,
feel completely lost and can easily dismiss it for the other offerings.

I was completely lost the first day of using WP8.1. Only after 3-4 days I was getting used to it.
Also my best friend who is an ex-GS3 owner and now iPhone 4s owner, when he use my lumia 730, I can see the confusion that he is having :p
 

a5cent

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The animations are clearly showing now with visual clues that you are going in the app, a layer up, a layer down and back out again.

Your post would make more sense if the concepts of "layer up" and "layer down" were concepts WP actually supported in the way you are thinking about them. Although that might adequately describe iOS' concepts of popping in and out of apps, it's not a valid description of WP. The reason you think those animations are clearly showing you anything, is likely because you associate clarity with familiarity, or at least more so than you associate clarity with either correctness or expressiveness (in this particular case, I take expressiveness to mean the degree to which WP's UI visually communicates the existence of and concepts underlying the back stack).

If sacrificing UI expressiveness is what it takes to make W10M's UI more accessible to iOS and Android owners, so be it, but I doubt this will make any difference whatsoever. IMHO MS could evolve WP into an iOS clone, shedding every last UI unfamiliarity you can think of, and that still would not move the needle. Why? Because the main problem has never been that WP is too inaccessible for iOS or Android owners to use, but that many of them see no reason to.

AFAIK, the back stack on W10M is no different from the back stack on WP, i.e. after navigating forward, away from the current page, it's often not immediately obvious where pressing the back button will take you. To a previous page in the current app? Back to the previous app? Back to the start screen? This is the kind of thing animations would be great at conveying, but instead of making that clearer, W10M is doing the opposite. It was never perfect, and recently a lot more inconsistencies have been creeping in, but now the animations no longer even attempt to convey any of that. The animations now have less meaning. They have lost most of their expressiveness.

You apparently view this as a good thing, but I think you are mistaken. You had/have problems understanding the back stack on WP. I suspect the new animations suggest to you that what you're unfamiliar with is going away. IMHO that's the worst possible approach. It would only be the right approach if the unfamiliarities actually were going away, but they aren't (W10M still uses the back stack). IMHO MS should be doing the exact opposite. The fact that UI navigation is different and you had trouble grasping those differences, means MS must do a better job of explaining them, precisely by providing more visual queues showing how navigation works on WP, possibly sometimes being very direct about it, and enforcing their consistent application throughout. This would allow MS to stake out some rules, which MS could make explicit, stating how navigation on WP works (you see animation A, the you can know the back button will take you to where you previously were). MS could also demonstrate these rules in an interactive tutorial that runs after initial setup. MS could also ensure that demonstration was installed on all devices on display in stores, simultaneously showing off its benefits.

Anyway, I hope I could convince you somewhat. Just to be clear, I'm not saying you're dense or to blame for any of the acclimatization issues you had on WP. I'm saying WP wasn't good at getting you past that phase and IMHO W10M is not going to get any better at it...
 
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Zachary Boddy

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In my personal opinion, Windows 10 Mobile isn't going forward from Windows Phone 8.1 on the UI animation front. But neither is it quite taking a step backwards.
It seems to me in this case that Microsoft is attempting to bring a UI cohesion that might not have been present in Windows Phone 8.1 (from their point of view), but by doing so are incorporating changes that might exist simply for the sake of change. And because of other changes that may have been enacted simply for the sake of change, Microsoft is then driven to make more meaningless changes. That doesn't mean the changes are bad, per say, just that they weren't necessary. For example, the Storage Sense app retains it's Windows Phone 8.1 looks, but because of this it looks out of place with the Windows 10 Mobile design language. I, personally, enjoy Windows 10 Mobile design language, but Microsoft has now set itself a job of reinventing an entire OS in order to bring a UI cohesion.
Following this line of thought, Microsoft probably feels obligated to also change the animations, because now (in their eyes), they look out of place with Windows 10 Mobile. In light of all the changes they're making, it seems odd to leave the "outdated" Windows Phone 8.1 animations in place.
That is why these animations are changing, and why they're more "eye candy" than "navigational cues" than those in Windows Phone 8.1 Microsoft hasn't downgraded or upgraded, they've just taken a step to the side, sacrificing navigational cues in order to gain more UI cohesion. However, I agree with things said previously, that this isn't the way to go. Change for the sake of change only works if we gain something by it. If we change a red apple for a green apple, what do we gain by it? Sure, some people may prefer the green apple, but what about the people who preferred the red apple? Change the red apple to an orange, though, and maybe more people can get behind it. Not everyone will like the orange, but it's better than just changing the color of the apple. If that makes any sense at all (probably not).
Good news though! We have the Insiders Preview program, so we can go tell Microsoft exactly what we think. We want an orange! Well, metaphorically speaking. Maybe going to back to Windows Phone 8.1 animations isn't the best way to go, but maybe keeping these new animations isn't either. Tell Microsoft to start experimenting with different animation styles, styles that give both navigational cues and simple beauty. This was a really long post. I'm going to shut up now. Shutting up.
 

a5cent

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^ no need to "shut up. That's what these forums are here for, to express our opinions ��

I agree with much of what you say, I just don't see the cohesion you speak of, or at least I don't understand the word in the same way you do. Both stylistically and functionally I see W10M as being less cohesive, the former considerably so.

Can you give me an example of where W10M's UI is stylistically or functionally more cohesive than WP8.1?
Your main point relates to this cohesiveness in W10M, and because I don't see it, I'd disagree that W10M's UI represents only a side grade.

Of course I see other benefits to W10M. I don't want to give the impression that I think it's all bullhocky, but I do think the UI is, at least so far.

I suspect MS is striving towards single-source cross-platform app compatibility, the idea being that developers can maintain a single and practically identical code tree for all three platforms (with a particular focus on iOS). I think that is the "only" thing driving MS to "reinvent" (rather than evolve) WP's existing UI concepts. In this case, "reinvent" means to align as closely as possible with iOS, so as to make this type of development possible. Obviously, the sacrifice of WP's UI differentiators would have to be part of that deal, together with the stylistic consistency that still remains. That cause may be worthy of those sacrifices. MS just couldn't be honest about that. They still need to sell the changes as the next big thing. I'm just not buying it.
 
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Zachary Boddy

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I never said that Windows 10 Mobile had already reached this UI consistency, only that Microsoft was trying to reach it.
It's the same premise with Windows 10. Both Windows 8 and 8.1 were filled with inconsistencies, jumping haphazardly from 3D icons, transparency, Metro and Modern UI, etc. Windows 8 was such a massive departure from Windows 7 (really Microsoft's last truly cohesive operating system), and it attempted to bring that cohesion that Microsoft has been after, but it wasn't nearly there. Windows 10 takes this way further, but Windows 10 still hasn't quite hit that true cohesion in design and functionality. Icons are still too different in places. 3D still clashes with flat in others. Modern wars with XP in a few more places. It's closer than 8/8.1 ever was but...there's still work to be done.
Microsoft is now trying to do the same thing with Windows 10 Mobile, but they're basing off their design language on Windows 10, which isn't even finished (UI speaking) itself. I'll be truly surprised if Windows 10 Mobile achieves what Microsoft is after at the time of release, but Microsoft is still going to get as close as they have with Windows 10.
In my opinion, Windows 10 Mobile still isn't anywhere near completion either in design or functionality. It's a thousand scattered puzzle pieces, except Microsoft still isn't certain what the puzzle depicts. They know it's some kind of mobile operating system, but they box that they're going off goes to a different puzzle. In a few places Windows 10 Mobile looks more complete and full than Windows Phone ever has, like the Settings menu (which still needs work, but it's still a vast improvement), the use of shading, the transfer of style across default apps, etc., but for the most part navigation, features, and UI still has a lot of work (arguably the biggest enemy of Windows 10 Mobile is navigational issues).

In reality, Windows 10 Mobile isn't anywhere near the UI cohesion that Microsoft is vying for, and in that aspect is a step backwards from Windows Phone 8.1 However, while Windows Phone 8.1 was nearing the end of it's path, Windows 10 Mobile is heading in a completely different direction, one that might take it to the destination Microsoft really wants it at, as long as it stays true. We have months before Windows 10 Mobile is released, months to watch it evolve and to give feedback. There's countless opportunities ahead of both us and Microsoft to make Windows 10 Mobile the best mobile operating system out there. It starts with something as simple as the animations.
 

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