#software interface design

Sputnik8 from phyletik.com designed and posted this concept on theverge.com.

This is a concept of what Windows could look like with the Metro theme they use on Windows Phones. I've gotta say, it looks really good:

Starting at the bottom right, the date, time and regular operating icons are much clearer, easier to see and, most importantly, they are made with typography concerned, rather than being plain-text time and date along with a mess of icons in a "drop-up" menu.

In Windows 7, the Start Bar has two frustrating states: either it always displays (knocking out a big footprint of pixel space that is especially noticeable on notebooks) or it only displays on mouse-over. The bottom matter in this concept appears to function as part of the desktop background, meaning that you can always see it as long as you havn't moved a window over it. The addition of notifications is going to be a necessary element with any OS going forward.

Bottom left: Gone is that vague and busy "Start" button, replaced by a search icon and much smaller app icons. The app icons take on a uniform color scheme of red and gray. That's good because in Windows 7 they're way too busy: Each is a different color, shape and resolution, and the whole thing becomes a soup of visual tension.

The windows themselves have been cleaned up: finally we lose the ugly, scrollbar-y, iframe-looking, plain-text-with-ugly-icons look that has persisted in Windows for years. In the type, the transitions from black to grays to reds, the subtle shifts in font size, etc, make for an interface that feels cleaner, simpler, more modern and easier to use.

As a side note, the logo execution here is a bit better than what Microsoft settled on. It has still transitioned from Flag to Window, as designers at Pentagram suggested it should, but without the strange situation where the window graphic seems to go back in space while the panes do not. Also, the window icon in Sputnik8's design works well as a small symbol, perfect for using in small spaces such as the Windows button on computers.

Thoughts on this design? I'm interested in seeing how it compares to the final Windows 8 interface design that is released.