Many think that designing a new version of Windows 8 is easy, just think of a design, code it and release, it actually is like that, but in a much complex way. Steve Kaneko, design director at Microsoft talks about the many challenges and choices the company had to take, for developing Windows 8.
Steve Kaneko design director at Microsoft has today spoken to The Verge on the many choices and challenges of moving to metro, and how Microsoft want to unify Metro across all their products.
Microsoft have been transitioning their Metro UI across all their products, to unify and keep the end user familiar with what they are using. Kaneko says that while the company is committed to the design principles of Metro, there are challenges that make the transition difficult.
For example, Kaneko points out that the large Metro style interface isn’t very good for applications like Office, which includes lots of elements and details, too much for Metro. He continues saying that even though Microsoft are trying to eliminate the “chrome” design elements, it does serve a functional purpose.
Kaneko then talks about how Microsoft is becoming more and more design-orientated. The company is working on unifying the look of all of it’s products. He says that the Microsoft design community feels more confident, and that they are not looking over our shoulders as much as we used to.