Recently, I’ve been looking closely at the interface of Windows7, partly because I’m preparing a theme that I want to to run on 7 as well as Vista.

The more I analyse the design decisions that Microsoft makes, the more I struggle to understand them. On a quick glance, Windows7 looks modern, fresh and refined, in many ways the equal of its old enemy, OS X. On closer examination, however, there are, as always, many rough edges lurking around every corner.

Let me just say, before getting off the ground on the individual elements in which I’m disappointed, 7 is a geometric improvement on Windows XP, and significantly more unified than Vista. Overall, it’s quite good. It simply frustrates me, as a lover of Windows generally, that a little more time, flair and inventiveness wasn’t put into it to raise it to ‘great’, rather than merely ‘good’.

1. Push Buttons

Photoshop makes it easy to have a pleasantly anti-aliased two or three pixel curve. Why therefore do 7’s buttons continue Vista’s disappointing trend? Is is a conscious design decision, and if it is, who made that decision? Compare Windows’ buttons to MobileMe, OS X or any number of other apps and see just how cheap and unfinished they look. Sadly, these will appear in almost every window and webpage you’ll see.

2. Text-based Shellstyle (Command Bar)

Again, you can see the logic. The command bar contains so many commands, changing depending on the folder that you’re in or the file that you select, that the user inevitably relies on reading the text rather than simply reacting to the icon (which is really the purpose of largely icon-driven GUIs). The problem with this approach is that, by pursuing visual simplicity (to be applauded), 7’s removal of the icons has instead removed a natural-seeming visual divider between each command. Now it looks like a long, poorly spaced sentence, and makes commands harder, not easier, to see.

3. Windowframes

Just like the push buttons, Microsoft’s designers seem to have completely eschewed the notion of anti-aliasing the corners of the aero windowframes. Rather than provide an attractive curve, using a slight bevel or 2px internal stroke, they have presented us with a stepped pixel affair, that could easily have been created in MS Paint. If, again, this is a conscious style decision (and I can’t imagine the justification) it is a poor one. OS X, older Longhorn concepts and many more manage to deliver rounded edges in a pleasant, unobtrusive way that looks natural and appealing, so it is a mystery why 7 cannot do the same.

4. Superbar Start Button (and superbar generally)

Most people seem to see the superbar as a significant improvement. I don’t really agree that it is, but I’m prepared to swept along in the tide of goodwill towards Windows 7 and not debate that. One problem this provides, however, is that there is very little visual difference between the start button and the task bar icons. I know that this isn’t really a usability problem, because everyone knows where to go to find Windows’ most famous menu. This aside, it just fails for me visually. It removes a focal point, and I would have imagined that it’s bad for branding.

 

5. Aero Basic

There is just no excuse for this horror anymore. Someone at MS must have ten spare minutes to tidy this up.

<end rant>

Many will say that this is the worst sort of visual nitpicking and that we should be happy that we finally have an OS that we can be happy with, even proud of. I understand that these ‘bugs’ aren’t show-stoppers and won’t stop me or anybody else from happily using 7. I just know that MS has some wonderful designers, and so every so often it would be nice to see a version of Windows with some wonderful design.