Article about Metro design

[Laurent Bugnion]

For those of you who are interested in Metro design:

 

http://blog.galasoft.ch/archive/2012/04/27/metro-design-inspiration.aspx

 

Cheers,

Laurent

--

Laurent Bugnion Senior Director, Europe, IdentityMine
Microsoft MVP, MCP  | +41 79 537 78 08

www.galasoft.ch | blog.galasoft.ch | www.identitymine.com

   

 

[Peter O'Hanlon]

Excellent article Laurent. I think this has finally answered the questions that have been percolating around my head for a while. Namely, what is Metro?

The problem is, Win8 and Metro are terms that have become synonymous. But, Metro has absolutely nothing to do with Win8. You can do Metro on any platform. This is why branding things as Metro apps has been so confusing to me. Perhaps if we started to refer to them as apps based on the Metro design philosophy, that might help others.

---

From: Laurent Bugnion
Sent: 27/04/2012 23:03
To: WPF Disciples
Subject: [WPF Disciples] Article about Metro design

[Laurent Bugnion]

Yes I agree about the confusion, Microsoft is so bad at finding names, when they have one that doesn’t suck, they misuse it and make everyone confused.

 

Cheers,

Laurent

[Josh Smith]

Great article, Laurent. I like the historical info you provided. That adds a lot of context around the ideas. I think it's worth mentioning that the Metro design language was designed to be easy on a mobile device's battery. Having simple, flat UI with no shadows, no rounded rect borders, etc. reduces the amount of processing required to render it.

Josh

Sent from my iPad

On Apr 27, 2012, at 3:02 PM, "Laurent Bugnion" <lau...@galasoft.ch> wrote:

For those of you who are interested in Metro design:

 

http://blog.galasoft.ch/archive/2012/04/27/metro-design-inspiration.aspx

 

Cheers,

Laurent

--

Laurent Bugnion Senior Director, Europe, IdentityMine
Microsoft MVP, MCP  | +41 79 537 78 08

www.galasoft.ch | blog.galasoft.ch | www.identitymine.com

<image001.png>    <image002.png>

 

[Laurent Bugnion]

Good point Josh!

Cheers
Laurent

Sent from my Lumia 900

---

From: Josh Smith
Sent: 28.04.2012 17:43
To: wpf-di...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [WPF Disciples] Article about Metro design

[Corrado Cavalli]

Awesome article Laurent, I’ll recommend it to anyone interested in Metro design.

 

Cheers,

Corrado

[Peter O'Hanlon]

It is an excellent point Josh, so why is Metro not black? It's a semi-facetious question, but it has a root in the fact that the default WP7 experience is black, which is really suited to low power consumption on mobile devices.

 

Pete

--
Peter O'Hanlon

[Josh Smith]

Black is not "off" for pixels. Show a black window on a screen and it looks distinctly different than if you turned your monitor off, right? There are certain, very specific, colors that are known to require less battery power (for certain types of screens, etc). I know for a fact that those colors are promoted internally to design groups within Microsoft, but many of the colors are considered "ugly" or whatever so there's friction. This is the stuff of flamewars, I imagine.

Josh

[Peter O'Hanlon]

But that depends on the device. On a low power tablet, such as the POC Android tablet that I have, the black pixels are, indeed, off.

--
Peter O'Hanlon

[Josh Smith]

Pete, I imagine every display device has its own quirks about how it tries to not tax the battery. Since I detest Android with a passion (after having owned and used a Droid X phone and a Xoom tablet for a year), I don't bother looking into what their hardware does. I'd rather eat rotting human flesh while watching someone's slides about their trip to the dentist for a root canal.

Josh

[Jeremiah Morrill]

Yeah screens that have self emitting pixels such as OLED, the brighter the pixel, the more power it consumes.  Standard LCDs with a backlight, the backlight is on for the entire screen, so power consumption isn't individual pixel dependent.

-Jer

--
Microsoft MVP - Client Application Development

HJT, Inc Software Developer

[Peter O'Hanlon]

Funnily enough, having bought the Galaxy Tab 10.1, I feel exactly the same about Android. I liked it for approximately 1/2 a day. Now I want to hunt down the designers of it and lay some righteous smack down on it.

--
Peter O'Hanlon

[Josh Smith]

Ah that explains it, thanks Jer!

[Josh Smith]

I no longer entertain the notion that Android is better than iOS, or that Android devices are better than iPhones/iPads. People who say that are clearly confused, stupid, or lying. :)

Apple has dropped quite the gauntlet. I would love to see Microsoft catch up and surpass them, but I'm not holding my breath. The game has changed. Adapt or die.

Josh

[Peter O'Hanlon]

It was shortly after buying the Android that I wished I'd just bought the iPad. I love my Win Phone, which is why I don't want to get an iPhone. An iPad, yes, but not an Android - never again. I'd love to see the Win 8 tablets rock, but it's really going to be down to the hardware.

--
Peter O'Hanlon

[Michael Brown]

Truth be told, I feel that Windows Phone is so far ahead of iPhone and Android phones in terms of experience that it doesn’t even make sense comparing them. I had to carry an iPhone for my round of On-Call duty for a week and was underwhelmed by the experience. Although I have fond memories of the Android OS as being the first Smartphone that was actually indispensable to me, looking at it now, I see a sea of lifeless icons.

 

I agree however that the bar has been set rather high by the new iPad. I’ve been tired of the fact I have a 24 inch monitor that has the same resolution as my laptop’s 17” monitor. Just like WP7 made a standard grid of icons worthless to me, I can’t look at a standard display the same after seeing the iPad. Windows RT is only going to take these new devices so far. We need a premier device to showcase Windows 8.

 

--Mike

[Peter O'Hanlon]

I see your article has made the Code Project newsletter today.

---

From: Laurent Bugnion
Sent: 28/04/2012 16:57
To: wpf-di...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [WPF Disciples] Article about Metro design

[Evan Lang]

So this confuses one other area, potentially. When you hear that apps in the marketplace must be "Metro-Style," do they mean they must follow these design guidelines, or simply that they must be implemented in WinRT?

________________________________
From: wpf-di...@googlegroups.com [wpf-di...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Laurent Bugnion [lau...@galasoft.ch]
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2012 2:03 AM
To: wpf-di...@googlegroups.com

Subject: RE: [WPF Disciples] Article about Metro design

Yes I agree about the confusion, Microsoft is so bad at finding names, when they have one that doesn’t suck, they misuse it and make everyone confused.

Cheers,
Laurent

From: wpf-di...@googlegroups.com [mailto:wpf-di...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Peter O'Hanlon
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2012 10:59 AM
To: WPF Disciples
Subject: RE: [WPF Disciples] Article about Metro design

Excellent article Laurent. I think this has finally answered the questions that have been percolating around my head for a while. Namely, what is Metro?

The problem is, Win8 and Metro are terms that have become synonymous. But, Metro has absolutely nothing to do with Win8. You can do Metro on any platform. This is why branding things as Metro apps has been so confusing to me. Perhaps if we started to refer to them as apps based on the Metro design philosophy, that might help others.


________________________________
From: Laurent Bugnion
Sent: 27/04/2012 23:03
To: WPF Disciples
Subject: [WPF Disciples] Article about Metro design
For those of you who are interested in Metro design:

http://blog.galasoft.ch/archive/2012/04/27/metro-design-inspiration.aspx

Cheers,
Laurent
--
Laurent Bugnion Senior Director, Europe, IdentityMine
Microsoft MVP, MCP | +41 79 537 78 08

www.galasoft.ch<http://www.galasoft.ch/> | blog.galasoft.ch<http://blog.galasoft.ch/> | www.identitymine.com<http://www.identitymine.com/>
[Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: cid:3353395316_25087103] [Description: MVPLogoHorizontal_99x40]

[Jeremiah Morrill]

I don't believe you have to follow the style guidelines.  All the cool guys take it with a grain of salt...

Metro apps are immersive-fullscreen apps that don't have to follow Metro guidelines and run on Windows 8 and Windows RT using WinRT.  Confused yet? ;)

-Jer

[Peter O'Hanlon]

Slightly hijacking this thread. What's happening with XNA in Win8? I
have seen all sorts of conflicting reports, so I was hoping that
someone slightly more in the in crowd might have the answer.

[Jeremiah Morrill]

XNA is only supported on the desktop in Windows 8.  The MonoGame guys are building a clone to support metro style applications.

Personally I think it's the right move to drop XNA from metro applications.  It only supported the aging DX9 level feature set.  Bringing it along is just bringing more pain of obsoleting it in the future.  If they do build an alternative, they should give it a complete overhaul (IMO) to support all the changes since DX11.

-Jer

[Peter O'Hanlon]

I was hoping that they would upgrade XNA to DX11 in WinRT. It would be good to have a unified experience. Let's face it, XBox has embraced Metro so it would make sense.

---

From: Jeremiah Morrill
Sent: 30/04/2012 20:03
To: wpf-di...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [WPF Disciples] Article about Metro design

[Josh Santangelo]

I really hope that SharpDX + ANX brings an XNA-style managed framework to Metro apps. It's a real shame that currently the only way to get any sort of 3D effect is to drop down to C++/DirectX, which is a hugely different skill-set from what's required to work with any other WinRT feature. I'll accept Monogame as well -- I know that DX9 is "aging", but honestly for the things you'd want to do in an app (vs a game), it's plenty capable.

http://code.google.com/p/sharpdx/

http://anxframework.codeplex.com/

-- 

s t i m u l a n t 

Josh Santangelo, Technical Director

P 206 737 5601 / M 206 229 5674 / F 815 550 1203 / W http://stimulant.io 

[Bill Kempf]

It's way more confusing. A "Metro-style" app, as you say is just a WinRT app. Where as an app that runs on the desktop but uses the Metro design language is not a "Metro-style" app. That dangling "-style" seems to make the naming very bad.

 

Then we have Windows RT, not to be confused by WinRT, which is a name that will mean nothing to the majority of the people, and to the few that do will just be confused.

 

Microsoft has never been good at naming, but this time around it seems like they are going out of their way to make the worst possible picks.

--
 Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
- Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery.  Bugs are features.