The release of Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system is a week away, and consumers are in for a shock.
Microsoft is making a radical break with the past to stay relevant in a world where smartphones and tablets have eroded the three-decade dominance of the personal computer. Windows 8 is supposed to tie together Microsoft’s PC, tablet and phone software with one look.
Instead of the familiar start menu and icons, Windows 8 displays applications as a colorful array of tiles, which can feature updated data from the applications. For instance, the “Photos” tile shows an image from the user’s collection, and the “People” tile shows images from the user’s social-media contacts.
The tiles are big and easy to hit with a finger — convenient for a touch screen. Applications fill the whole screen by default — convenient for a tablet screen, which is usually smaller than a PC’s. The little buttons that surround Windows 7 applications, for functions such as controlling the speaker volume, are hidden, giving a clean, uncluttered view. When you need those little buttons, you can bring them out, but users have to figure out on their own how to do it.
“In the quest for simplicity, they sacrificed obviousness,” said Sebastiaan de With, an interface designer and the chief creative officer at app developer DoubleTwist in San Francisco.
Microsoft chief financial officer Peter Klein said Thursday he isn’t concerned that user confusion could slow the adoption of Windows 8.
