David Flynn25 March 2008, 10:55 AM
Vista's successor will sport a radically revised XML-based interface with elements of Office 2007's ribbon, as Microsoft literally rewrites the rule book on the Windows UI
We knew that Windows 7 would look different from Vista and its other Windows ancestors. Now it's becoming clear just how different that will be. The next generation of Windows, due around 2010-2011, will sport a radical facelift that borrows elements such as Office 2007's 'ribbon' toolbar and the orb-like 'jewel' application menu. More than that, the UI will be based on XML and what Microsoft describes as "a small, high performance, native code runtime" rather than the Win32 framework, in order to deliver a "rich, graphical, animated user interface". In shorthand: think functional, flashy and fast.
How do we know this? Because Microsoft has told us so. Or at least it's told prospective employees in a job posting for a 'Lead Software Development Engineer' on the Windows 7 UI team.
"Come lead the effort to update the Windows 7 platform with the latest advancements in User Interface design" spruiks the advert for the Redmond-based gig. "Bring the Ribbon, Jewel, and other new UI concepts to the Windows platform."
But this looks to go beyond a simple copy-and-paste from the Office 2007 codebase. The spiel goes on to point out that a whole new UI is in the works, using a "startup team" that will design the UI from first principles. "We will be determining the new Windows user interface guidelines and building a platform that supports it."
The end result will be a new set of Windows UI guidelines for third-party software developers as well as Microsoft's own code-cutters. The raw materials of that interface will include a "markup based UI and a small, high performance, native code runtime". This sounds like the UI will be built on the XAML-based WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) core, which is of course the parent to Silverlight. (It should also be noted that the Office 2007 ribbon can be customised using a combination of XML markup and any Visual Studio .NET language such as Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++ and C#.)
Of course, it's long been expected that Windows 7 chief Steven Sinofsky would seek not just a new look for Son of Vista but a new approach to the whole Windows UI. That was confirmed when Sinofsky hired Julie Larson-Green as VP in charge of the "the Windows User Experience" or UX program.
It was Larson-Green who lead the Office 2007 user interface team when Sinofsky was Office supremo, ditching the decades-old clutter of menus, toolbars and task panes for a single task-aware 'ribbon'. However, Sinofsky was the one who fired the starter's pistol by encouraging the team to rethink the whole UI from scratch.
Jensen Harris, who was program manager for the Office 2007 UX team and now fills Larsen-Green's role in fine-tuning the face of Office 14 (not wishing to tempt fate, they're skipping 13!) recalls that it was Sinofsky who drove the suite's dramatic interfacelift.
"It originated with Steven Sinofsky" Harris told APCmag.com in an interview last year. "Steven had certainly noticed, like we all had, the growing interface clutter around the core Office apps, and he thought we should put a set of people together and at least think about this. He definitely gave us the freedom to think about (starting over), and for Julie to get the people that she wanted."
Larsen-Green was also a staunch advocate for rethinking the way Office worked and, more importantly, that way users wanted it to work, says Harris. "She was really serious about trying to understand the problems with the UI. Julie is definitely a champion of building great user experiences, and I know that in Windows she'll be looking to do the same types of things that she did in Office, which espouse great design values."