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The Next Microsoft

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Re: The Next Microsoft

#141

Post by potatolicious »

blhack wrote: post #73

Dear everybody, Are you paying attention? This is how you build a portfolio. Did microsoft ask this person to do this? No. But he did it, and it's brilliant, and now he can put it in his portfolio under "speculative work". And then he gets a job doing this. I can't tell you how many people I talk to (I live in a college town, and frequently go to bars and strike up conversations with people) who just finished, or are…

This can go either way.

Remember when dcurtis did a unsolicited spec redesign for the American Airlines website? We here at HN tore him a new one (justifiably so, it ignored so many critical aspects of the business, and came off as entirely impractical).

When you do something like this, you better be sure you nail every single angle of it.

FWIW, I normally hate spec redesigns - they're usually positioned in a pompous, "I know better than everyone", self-aggrandizing way. But this one I really like, this one strikes a chord.

Re: The Next Microsoft

#142

Post by mkr-hn »

bluthru wrote: post #27

"Purely digital." There is no such thing. That's like saying "purely hologram". Pixels have no inherent materiality. There is nothing about the Metro UI that couldn't be recreated on a piece of paper. The goal is visual communication and delight. Sterile for the sake of sterile isn't virtuous.

"Purely digital" means it avoids real-world metaphors like postal mailboxes, analog clocks and magnetic tape.

Re: The Next Microsoft

#143

Post by FreshCode »

I like how designers are beginning to feel compelled to point out the disconnect between the old Microsoft and the new. To me this signifies the impending reinvention of the Microsoft brand. Their development tools (like Visual Studio 2012) are so far ahead of anything out there that their new product designs delight without surprise. That being said, these proposed designs take minimalism too far.

Re: The Next Microsoft

#144

Post by potatolicious »

kitsune_ wrote: post #67

This design is Orwellian in nature. In the current age of global wars, international terrorism, financial turmoil, outsourced labor, awakening behemoths (China), increasing corruption, people fear the future. Look at Apple, classic 1960's space age retro. Look at Instagram. Cozy and nostalgic polaroid filters. If I designed for the future, I'd take hints from the past. A key difference is that in the past, different…

You're right, but I think that's exactly what MSFT needs.

> "Look at Instagram. Cozy and nostalgic polaroid filters."

Microsoft is an enterprise and productivity tools company, first and foremost. They build platforms, and their chief value proposition is still "getting shit done for people and businesses", which is a far cry from the "share personal moments" of Instagram or "stylish, sexy" of Apple.

Whatever brand they take needs to reflect this. Right now their brand reflects "corporate, staid, boring, completely uninnovative", but perhaps that uber-sleek, coldly professional look is exactly what they need.

After all, we know Microsoft doesn't stand a chance going toe to toe with Apple, playing by Apple's rules (cute, emotional, nostalgic, soft). Changing the rules is pretty much all they've got going for them.

Re: The Next Microsoft

#146

Post by jasomill »

hollerith wrote: post #81
cturner wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big one - forking is far too slow. Others - you can't use select(..) on files. Nasty file-locking model. No good remote filesystem solution out of the box (CIFS is slow and unstable) and the third party solutions are nasty. No native workspaces and the third party attempts are nasty. You can't reflect against the system API (all current mainstream OSs suffer from this). The API is particularly thick with legacy o…

The presence on your list of a complaint about workspaces is evidence that Windows is not so bad because having workspaces is not that important. OS X did not have workspaces at all for many years, and the two different versions of it they have introduced are kind of lame in the details of how they work. (Specifically, Command-Tab cycles among all open apps, not just the ones in the current workspace, as is done on L…

I'd tend to agree that Workspaces are "nice to have" rather than particularly important, but aside from "show desktop" and (the very nice) Aero Snap, Windows doesn't have any particularly useful window management tools at all.

To pick a (not entirely unimportant in the present context) nit, Spaces contain windows, not applications; each application has zero or more windows (an useful and important feature of OS X) contained in zero or more Spaces. There's an option to control whether or not switching to an application with no windows in the current Space switches to a (not "the") Space that does contain such windows, and the default ("yes") is sensible.

The quick way to switch to a different window in OS X is Exposé, which is broken in Lion, but fixed in Mountain Lion (clear "Group windows by application" in Mission Control Preferences).

Finally, the quickest way to switch between specific applications, windows, or even arbitrary Cocoa UI elements is binding AppleScripts to key combinations (using one of many tools; Alfred.app is as good a place as any to start). For anything more complicated than 'tell application "Foo" to activate', Script Debugger [1] and Accessibility Inspector [2] are your friends.

[1] http://www.latenightsw.com/

You can learn more about AppleScript in the course of its free 20 day evaluation period than you could in 20 months with Apple's tools (and $199 only sounds expensive until you use AppleScript nontrivially for the first time).

[2] Traditionally bundled with Xcode, it's been split out into a separate "Accessibility Tools" package in some recent builds, and hidden inside the Xcode.app bundle in others (though Spotlight should still find it).

Re: The Next Microsoft

#147

Post by phil »

programminggeek wrote: post #6

This is great. It will never work. A brand has to reflect the culture of how a product is made, sold, experienced, etc... Microsoft is not about simplicity, it's about feature creep. Microsoft sells software and licenses to big companies. Big companies don't want simple, they want value for their money - features! A better brand promise would be Microsoft - It Does Everything! Look at Windows 8. Is it going metro onl…

The fascinating thing about Microsoft today is they find themselves in such a strategically desperate position that they are beginning to change that attitude.

Re: The Next Microsoft

#148

Post by mirkules »

ippisl wrote: post #136
jiggity wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this design makes you uneasy and go "But that's not Microsoft!", slap your gut and tell it to listen because that's just the branding talking. Take a step back and recognize that EVERY emotion you feel about Microsoft is arbitrary. Branding is just the mental handle we use to talk about the automatic emotions we get. That is the tough part about branding: it happens unconsciously. It is that surge of instantaneous…

But why should i even care about an advertising campaign , when i can look at youtube videos, reviews, and ask my friends about microsoft's products ? if microsoft's product is cool enough, or solves some specific problem i've got, i'll probably hear about it.

YouTube videos and reviews (online or not) are mostly just astro-turfed advertising campaigns. You and your friends are likely influenced by either of these things on both a conscious and subconscious level, which then feeds back into the advertising campaign (this works in both a negative and positive sense). [Edit: this is how the "cool" that you mention gets created. I highly suggest watching a PBS documentary called "The Merchants of Cool", if a bit dated, to see how prevalent this is]

As an example, take a look at any car magazine (e.g. Sports Compact Car) and read any of the articles. Or read a Cosmo or GQ article. The one thing they all have in common is they push a product through a story that doesn't even seem like advertising. It's both brilliant and slimy at the same time, and is the ultimate goal of any advertising campaign -- to assimilate itself into the culture without appearing that it is even trying. Like Apple.

Like it or not, we are all influenced by ads on some level, and if nothing else, the reason any one of us "hackers" should care about advertising campaigns is at least to appreciate, analyze and improve upon them for our own products.

Re: The Next Microsoft

#149

Post by jeremyarussell »

abhinavsharma wrote: post #50
zbowling wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Which leads to some of the most awful and crazy designs decisions. Look at the upgrade to 64 bit. In Windows 16 bit days you had the C:\Windows\System directory. In Windows 32 bit, you gained C:\Windows\System32 for your system libraries. In Windows 64 bit you would assume C:\Windows\System64 right? Nope. 64 bit dlls go in to System32 and 32bit dlls go into SysWOW64. WTF? Same goes with Program Files (32 bit…

Though I agree with your general point about Microsoft being hampered by legacy support (but for other reasons such as having 2 UI paradigms of Metro and Windows together), I don't think this is the best example. The everyday user really doesn't care what folder their software is installed to as long as its easily accessible from the desktop/programs.

The big issue that comes out of that mindset is that it's people that do work in those folders that end up telling laymen that stuff is done stupid, opening up a nice spot for apple and it's simple and easy everything to come in and take away sales. (Or my favorite, when I can manage to get someone to try out Ubuntu :) )

Re: The Next Microsoft

#150

Post by stcredzero »

creamyhorror wrote: post #133
stcredzero wrote: post #62

- Apple - Skeuomorphic - Google - Hybrid - Microsoft - Purely digital I agree that this is one of the things Metro has right. It's even more "about the content" than Google or Apple is. In the case of Apple, I think this may be intentional. Apple is also about the personal. Skeuomorphic interfaces can be used to evoke memories associated with physical objects and past technology.

This rings true for me. The retro look of Winamp brings back vivid memories. I'm not sure how well Metro's content-is-everything aesthetic will go down with the public; it's bold, but possibly too much so. This proposed rebranding veers a bit too cold (or Orwellian, as someone else said) for me, despite its futuristic appearance. I'd be afraid that MS would turn out to be an amoral megacorp that was trying to develop…

I'd be afraid that MS would turn out to be an amoral megacorp...

Too late. Hopefully, they won't go down any pathways involving weaponizing alien lifeforms. (1 - become amoral, 2 - weaponize alien, 3 - ????, 4- PROFIT!!)

Really all three are amoral megacorps. Apple has been good at putting personable faces on its brand. Google still has some "Don't be Evil" cred, and is still held in good regard for open standards.

Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do in the PR department.

Then again, maybe Microsoft should apply the principles of Judo, and just go with it. Instead of fighting the public perception currents, they could gain incredible momentum by going with them. Forget the progressive and clinical Sci-fi future -- embrace dystopian darkness and evil! That stuff is geek-cool! For me, Steve Ballmer publicly and wholeheartedly embracing evil would result in an 800% increase in credibility. Add an evil scientist laugh, and he'd get an equal boost in nerd-cred.

http://imgur.com/3Seb8

Also, they could dispense with their long struggle to be cool. Just embrace basement-dweller IT-worker RPG-playing nerdyness.

Microsoft: Just Be Evil!

Microsoft: Inflict your users, for the Lulz!

Microsoft: Help us destroy society and make your Sci-Fi dreams come true!

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