Along Came Metro
Metro —not the passenger railway system nor the Canadian supermarket chain— is Microsoft's grounding design language for its audacious foray into the world of amalgamated operating systems (OSs) i.e. the same core OS running on devices ranging from smartphones to fully fledged desktop PCs.
Though initially created primarily for its mobile/smartphone operating system (Windows Phone 7 OS), Metro has well and truly outgrown its humble beginnings and now attempts to take on the world of all Windows based devices.
Before I delve into the meat of my post, let's first try to understand what a 'design language' is. Though I'm into a little Graphics Design (no formal education; all self taught), until the emergence of Windows Phone 7 and the initial whispers of Windows 8, I honestly was never really privy to the term 'design language' (...figures huh).
Wikipedia defines it as follows:
“A design language or design vocabulary is an overarching scheme or style that guides the design of a complement of products or architectural settings.”
From further reading of Wikipedia's entry a design language may simply be worded as;
A fully specified design template which gives products, of a particular brand or suite, a uniquely identifying look and feel.
As a cliched example, take BMW; would you know a BMW vehicle if you saw one? Most likely yes. Why? Because all BMW vehicles follow a given design language which specifies how a BMW vehicle should look like, be it; the grill, the fender, the lights etc.
An even better (and more cliched) example are Apple products, which all have that polished, elegant and minimalist look to it. You definitely would know an Apple product when you saw one (and not only because of that popular fruit logo that comes with it).
One OS to rule them all
The big boys of the mobile OS consumer electronics industry ---Apple, Microsoft, Google and not forgetting RIM (...oh how the mighty have fallen)--- all seem to be in the process of converging their different OS offerings into a single all-encompassing OS. As noted by Brian Heater in an OS X review on Engadget; Apple, with its recent offering of OS X Lion, are “transitioning to something with an even stronger iOS influence” as evidenced by its features such as; Notification Center, even deeper touch gesture integration, iCloud tab syncing, etc.
Google's desert flavoured Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) OS, as with RIM's Black Berry 10 OS, have likewise been developed to run on both phones and Tablet PCs (though without any desktop PC versions). Then finally Microsoft with its Windows 8 kernel, are closest to achieving this daunting goal of having the same OS on all devices.
Control in Metro
Cycling & Switching
So Microsoft's Windows 8 brings both touch and mouse-keyboard optimized experiences to tablets, traditional PCs and will ultimately do so for mobile phones with Windows Phone 8 (Apollo). Microsoft should be duly lauded for taking the initiative of being the first to bring this experience to the consumer market, though not without its consequent criticisms (a few of which I think are just borne out of our innate hate for change).
However, one issue I believe has some grounds is the sense of limited control/flexibility in the Metro environment when running, handling and switching between multiple open applications. Having a sense of complete control is one key component that has always been prevalent within full fledged desktop environments. This is one of the key arguments that's always labeled against mobile OSs (iOS, Android) when comparisons are made between them and desktop OSs.
The video below (from 5:06) demonstrates how cycling between open applications in Windows 8 is done.
Realize that all visual cues informing the user about all running apps are not immediately visible (FYI, in Software Usability Engineering lingo, this is referred to as a hidden affordance). The mouse pointer has to be placed on the top-left corner of the screen to bring up the option of selecting the most recently opened app. Bringing the pointer a bit lower brings up all the open applications.
Now contrast this with the default behaviour on Windows 7, where a dedicated Task bar constantly shows all open apps, and by simply taking a quick glance at it, you could see which apps are open and can consequently click to select it.
I do understand that with Windows 8 being targeted for both tablets and PCs, screen space (real estate) is a major issue. However, I believe that solution for quickly cycling through and selecting running apps can be achieved such that thumbnails of the running applications can be placed on the left, and a click on any immediately makes that application active (just like using the task bar in Windows 7) [Mock-up below]. A middle ground saving screen space between this and the current implementation would be to have that ever so popular Auto-hide option available for the task bar.
[Note: I know I’m not suppose to be clinging on the old Windows logo. However, I just cant bring myself to liking the new one. Innate hate for change? True, but could it not have been this instead?]
Also, we could further extend the task bar functionality by including an 'All apps' button, which when clicked expands the task bar to fill up the screen and displays slightly bigger thumbnails of all running apps. In this view, clicking (or tapping) on any of the thumbnails immediately makes that app full-screen and active. Further actions can also be included in this view, such as selecting several apps and snapping (discussed in the next section), or closing all at once.
Snapping
Another issue about the lack of control with Windows 8 is the number of applications you can have displaying simultaneously (or referred to in the above video at 5;06 as 'snapping'). For some unknown reason, the maximum number of apps that can be snapped is 2, irrespective of your screen's display resolution!
Frankly, I was hoping for something a bit more innovative from Microsoft on this front, especially given the fact that the Metro design language has the concept of tiles at its core.
For instance, this snapping technique could easily be extended to handle multiple apps, such that handlers within the borders can be used to re-size all the snapped apps simultaneously (see mock-ups below).
However, one issue that may arise with this proposed implementation will be the case of a blank area when an odd number of apps are snapped. A solution for this will be to fill the section with the 'Start screen'.
All for one, one for all... but that one better be perfect
With the introduction of the consumer preview of Windows 8, the step into the realm of fully amalgamated OSs has begun. However, I believe Microsoft can go a few steps further in allowing more control and flexibility within the Metro environment, primarily by making a few more controls/buttons immediately visible. In doing so, Windows 8 will be able to leverage the sheer power of PCs and the fluid ease-of-use of the tablet experience it aims to offer.
