UI Elegance

One feature I think all Windows users eventually find themselves looking for is an improvement to, or at a minimum find themselves complaining about, is the Windows UI. From 95 through XP things didn't change much, lots of grey and shades of blue. Icons improved and certainly the crispness of the presentation, although XP was a welcome UI relief. The XP UI wore pretty thin quite quickly but then there was always room for some desktop / windows shell altering software that made the daily grind on windows a little easier to bear.

Windows 7 certainly provided the Windows community with some welcome UI upgrades. The Aero interface, in fairness, is way better than anything Windows users have ever experienced. Some of the other Win7 goodies including the <Super> Tab application switcher, clever Docking, Taskbar thumbnails and Aero peek. Frustratingly the Windows 7 UI and the Office 2010 UI are not the same. If you change to the Windows 7 classic theme Office still looks like Office (it's "nice"), but not the same. UI consistency is important. Although Office abides by the Windows rules there is still a sense of "two teams" behind the dev. Many application developers have also taken to skinning their apps to make them a little more interesting than Aero and Office. The Windows Presentation Foundation makes good looking aplication development much easier and more accessible. You can hack Windows a little to take on some awesome themes on the net - ultimately making it look more like a Mac or some derivative of a Linux desktop. I still don't think Windows has done enough.

Apple have also traditionally had a great looking really consistent UI. The well known perfectionist approach by Jobs and co have ensured that the OSX interface has been stellar and consistent since a long time ago. More recently Apple added the App store for OSX. The interface is different. There have been some complaints. I think the influence of iOS on OSX (after iOS was snagged out of OSX in the first place) going forward is going to be more significant than we realise.

Not too long ago Ubuntu announced they were going to drop GNOME in favour of Unity, previously the UI for Ubuntu Netbook Edition. The Unity interface is going to be adapted to run a full desktop. Cue the KDE vs. GNOME vs. Some Other Desktops (Xfce | Fluxbox) vs. Unity debate. 

GNOME has launched their new website for GNOME 3. Its pretty and clever and hopefully by the time its released it will be real fast and smooth. 

GNOME 3 Images:

Then there are these awesome Unity mock-ups from paulop on DevinatArt.

To add fuel to the fire here are some unofficial LibreOffice mock-ups as well.

I think looking at the above images, although unofficial and considering that GNOME 3 is alpha, the UI that these respective parties are bringing to the "desktop" are simply brilliant. Screens get wider and apps have more vertical screen usage with irritating horizontal menus? All of the interfaces above are capitalising heavily on the available width (menu and controls on the left or right), not the height. The LibreOffice changes are so functional. Unity is gorgeous and functional. Less buttons (who cares) with more real estate, real smart efficient use of space. A rare spectacle of form and function.   

I am really looking forward to Unity (final release) and the first official release of LibreOffice. This may just bring the change and kick in the !@#$ that Linux on the desktop needs.

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