Yesterday a friend visited me and he had brought a Windows Phone 7 with him. For a few minutes I was allowed to tap around and try some of the apps that are installed. As expected the user interface is pretty minimalistic, but does not compromise on functionality. Everything seems to be more ambient, more hidden, but appears right when you need it.
Some observations I made:
- The UI does not feel cluttered. Most layouts are just scrollable lists, icons left, text right, that’s it. If columns are used, they span multiple screens.
- There is a clear distinction about what is important and what not. The text on the menu items are white and large, the hints are small and grey.
- User interface elements hide when they are not required. For example in the top bar, all the status indicators except the clock just hide after some time. A great choice to reduce cognitive load. You just tap on the bar, and the indicators appear again.
- Selector wheels, like the one to select the month, day and year for the clock, appear not until you start touching the digits. I like that, information that is displayed when required, not sooner!
- The app and tile icons are designed to be simple, and their background color is adjustable. That leads to a common look and feel among them. On iOS or Android, every app icon is just completely different (except may be the glare effect on IOS), which is much more distracting, I guess.
So I am getting excited by the Metro Design, and I have high hopes that Microsoft changes its current strategy and will use their WP7 UI in upcoming tablets.