My concept UI for Windows 8.1 or 9.0

[Fade_z]

Res thing:1080p yeah
Folders: Totally agree, the people like layout with all the apps within displayed.
Interactive Tiles: Yes yes yes!!
Groups: Somewhat agree, needs a little tweaking
Volume: No, messy and annoying + not touchscreen friendly
Gestures: No, not useful and intuitive at all.
Task manager [closing apps]: yes, should already be in current wp8
Multitask-splitscreen: Yes to a degree where only high end devices get it.
Onscreen buttons instead of normal back-windows-search : just no...
Notification center: In a way yes, but easier and more metro style-ish.
Lockscreen: nope, i would prefer a more iOS kinda way [like you did on noti-center with the facebook things]


1 big tip; make it more simple! the metro design is known for being simple, you make so many steps to do things and its way to busy onscreen.

 

[Gal Avraham]

wow! amazing!
i wish that microsoft had seen this video!

 

[trandz]

I do not own an android phone but can you actually use 2 apps at once?
Also iOS and wp8 both have multitasking, just not 2 things at once

Yes. With Samsung phones. I could on my gs4, but its not part of stock Android or other skins besides TouchWiz.

 

[Fade_z]

Yes. With Samsung phones. I could on my gs4, but its not part of stock Android or other skins besides TouchWiz.

also using them both at once split screen style?

 

[Optimus82]

also using them both at once split screen style?

yea side by side. Don't know why this feature isn't taken advantage of more often. There are also apps that you can use in a floating window over any app... Floating calculator, video player, browser etc

 

[Fade_z]

yea side by side. Don't know why this feature isn't taken advantage of more often. There are also apps that you can use in a floating window over any app... Floating calculator, video player, browser etc

and the device specs are?
How is the experience? Laggy or smooth?
And is it comparable with the windows 8 tablet way?

 

[Optimus82]

and the device specs are?
How is the experience? Laggy or smooth?
And is it comparable with the windows 8 tablet way?

Havent used windows 8 for too long when i had it but if its that "snapped" view side-by-side-vertical & horizontal... yes its like that. Samsung sees to be the only one to take advantage of it. LG also has floating apps on their devices called q-slide apps that you can open and operate over any app while both apps are actually fully running. There are also apps in the Google play store that simulate this. From my experience with the note 2, running multi-windows wasnt taxing. using google maps and sms side-by-side, scrolling and zooming in/out was still smooth then going over to chat flawlessly.. but you do get the lag that a lot of samsung devices have..someting about touchwiz ive always hated

i also have an lg optimus l9 with 1ghz dualcore and 1gb ram... no multiwindow but running floating apps does not cause lag at all even while using the floating video player, adjusting the opacity and then interacting with the other app that is full screen.

 

[qudahamohammad]

i actually agree with you at some degree. up to some point, the startscreen already serves as a notification screen. but a lot of times, i get 6 text messages and although the icon would show how many, it would only show me only 1 message to read, gearing to a need of a place where ALL notifications can be checked at once.

with regards to being gesture based, i don't see anything wrong with that, as long as there is ample moment to instruct users how to do it. like many others, i was shocked when windows 8 did not teach users many things on how to use the os. but with proper how-to's, i believe there wouldn't be a problem even if the os has become touch based.

actually, many years ago, i was till using android that time, i was shown a lumia 800 for the first time. and i did not know what to do. not understand anything about it. i tried swiping a little and i get more and more confused so i just gave the phone back to the owner. my point is, even the current setup of wp7.8/8.0 would be confusing and non-intuitive without any tutorial, but with simple but precise instruction, the os could be learned. and i think adding a few more function won't hurt especially if it would unify the experience on both desktop and phone.

I've never encountered that except with Twitter application, message count on Messaging, Whatsapp, ChatON, XMS and ICQ is always correct. (yes I chat with lots of people).

Windows 8 gives a simple tutorial at the beginning and there's a manual that comes with Windows Phone 8 (at least Lumias), people should read the manual to understand the OS. And besides, Windows Phone 8 is made for people who got their first smartphone, they would be able to do things if they just read the manual.

 

[anon(5344685)]

1000% as I imagined ! I love this concept. Microsoft HAS TO SEE this! Honestly that is all I'm waiting to see in Windows Phone, only this way it will be a equal competitor to Android and iOS.

Amazing, but it cannot just end up being a concept, somehow you have to let Microsoft see it!

 

[voiceoverguy]

Great job! I like it!

 

[Leart369]

I can just say it looks amazing, if microsoft does something like this in the future they will become #1

 

[Owen Groundhog]

awesome
i wish they gonna use your concept
woehoe [?_?]

Sent from my XT910 using WPCentral Forums mobile app

 

[Owen Groundhog]

i emailed the link to the microsoft blog ;D
lets hope they gonna use it! [^_^]

Sent from my XT910 using WPCentral Forums mobile app

 

[eroselim]

Nice Concept here, but hope you'll still stick with the term, SIMPLE with WP8..

 

[anon(5580688)]

Really great concept and design, but I think that adding new gestures would put some people off, such as if you can't see the all apps arrow and swiping to the left is notifications, how would you get to all apps? Great stuff though

 

[Christian Del Rosario]

Things like xbox achievements come through as toast notifications:

Toasts for Windows Phone
No consumer product's UI should require a tutorial. A tutorial is just a silent admittance to having failed at designing something self explanatory. If Windows 8 had shipped with a tutorial, then the reaction would have been better, but it still wouldn't be loved. A consumer product like WP must be loved or it will fail.

I'm sorry, but in all my experiences in computer usage, i have not seen anything that's intuitive in first or second look. in fact, when i first see a lumia 800 with the original wp7 os through a friend who owns it, i immediately returned the phone back because i did not understand anything about the interface. and when we first had a desktop computer at home (with windows 95 os), i broke the computer as soon as the deliveryman left the house because i did not know how to shut down a computer. and since computers back then gets cranky when powers are immediately cut off without shutting down, our computer got broken. when we purchase a gadget or a machine in a store, the sales person always finds a time to give a simple explanation on how to operate them because shifting from a power/vol/prog-regulated sdtv to ui-based hdtv is confusing enough and users probably dont want to mess up some tv settings before starting to learn how to use a new tv.

although, a design would be intuitive if for example it looks similar to its predecessor. that's probably why people felt comfortable until windows 7. when win8 came out, everyone went crazy because it looks different. if a tutorial plainly is an admittance to failure, people would be scared to venture on new ideas, and would just stick to what works today.

 

[Christian Del Rosario]

I've never encountered that except with Twitter application, message count on Messaging, Whatsapp, ChatON, XMS and ICQ is always correct. (yes I chat with lots of people).

Windows 8 gives a simple tutorial at the beginning and there's a manual that comes with Windows Phone 8 (at least Lumias), people should read the manual to understand the OS. And besides, Windows Phone 8 is made for people who got their first smartphone, they would be able to do things if they just read the manual.

oh what i mean is that when i receive 6 text messages, the tile would show 6, but it will only show one detailed message on the tile. therefore, i can immediately see only the latest text. if i want to get a glimpse on the other 5 texts, i really need to open the app...

 

[a5cent]

I'm sorry, but in all my experiences in computer usage, i have not seen anything that's intuitive in first or second look. in fact, when i first see a lumia 800 with the original wp7 os through a friend who owns it, i immediately returned the phone back because i did not understand anything about the interface.

Apparently we have very different opinions and experiences in this area. I consider my mother to be one of the most computer illiterate people on the planet, and even she was able to quite easily figure out how to handle a Lumia 800, which was her very first smartphone.

I would interpret your statement as saying, that you've had to read a users manual for every app you ever downloaded, but I highly doubt you've ever done that. Most people intuitively grasp how to use simple apps, on WP more so than on any other mobile OS. I think that already disproves your statement that there is no such thing as an intuitive piece of software.

I think you are making excuses for not having to push towards a simpler UI design, but that is just my opinion. :wink:

 

[qudahamohammad]

oh what i mean is that when i receive 6 text messages, the tile would show 6, but it will only show one detailed message on the tile. therefore, i can immediately see only the latest text. if i want to get a glimpse on the other 5 texts, i really need to open the app...

yeah you can only see the last message :/

 

[dukrem]

what's the point of live tiles if there's a notification center?

Imo the point of live tiles is for news apps and such like WPCentral. It is good for being able to pin things like people in order to stay up to date on a specific person or group of people. It is also good for showing calendar schedules. For users who only use the standard WP apps it works well for messaging and emails too.

The problems start when you start using different third party messaging apps to communicate with different people (eg. facebook for some, others on Skype, kik, etc). If you get a series of rapid toasts while you're busy doing something else, like reading in kindle for example, you're going to miss a few of them. The current solution would be to leave what you're reading in kindle, go to the start screen and start searching through your pinned tiles for the notifications. When you find them there may be several notifications across 2 or more apps. In that case you will probably only get the latest notification from each separate app on its tile, and only IF you pinned the wide tile and IF that wide tile has been well designed by the developer. For all previous notifications you have to enter each of those apps to see all notifications. This is time consuming and if none of those notifications were important, you've wasted time when you could've kept doing whatever important thing you were doing previously.

There are also still issues with some apps (especially games) with resuming from multitasking. This makes it even more annoying having to leave your current app to see what your notifications are.

A notification centre certainly doesn't replace live tiles for many things. As I mentioned above, live tiles are awesome for news apps, for pinning people, for calendars, etc, and that experience still offers far more than android or iOS icon grids. I still love and want to keep live tiles, I just think they need supplementing.

The other point of a notification centre is to provide access to quick settings. I use Bluetooth a lot in my car, but there is no way the battery on the 620 can cope with it being on all day. If I'm getting in my car, queuing my music, the last thing I want to do is exit to the start screen, find my settings icon, find the Bluetooth menu and switch it on, before navigating back to my music. We need a quick settings menu so that we don't have to leave what we're doing every time we want to change Bluetooth, wifi, flashlight, independent volume controls, etc. I know people think this adds unnecessary complexity to the UI, but it increases efficiency of user interaction with their phones. The ability to instantly change settings and instantly see a summary of recent notifications would save so much time for a lot of users, and for the rest they don't ever have to use it.