It’s worth sayin that the Windows 7 Explorer UI had gotten minimal to the point where it wasn’t simple anymore. But pulling a complete 180 and making the menu bar items permanently visible, with icons sprawled all over the place, isn’t exactly the best solution either.
Microsoft says they’re re-imagining with Windows 8 and the Explorer UI. Yet, beyond the ribbon of commands, the fundamental act of navigating in explorer is unchanged. And though these icons are plastered across the top of the Explorer window, there are still more dropdown menus, secondary tabs and scroll boxes. Blah.
It’s a kitchen sink mentality, which is always nice in theory. But for people who aren’t power users, this seems a bit overwhelming (my immediate, subconscious reaction erred this way everytime I looked at the images or watched the video).
And Microsoft can point to usage data all they want (which they do), but it shouldn’t be used to dictate design. It should be used to support the gut instincts that make design human. And that’s not to say there aren’t some good ideas at play here. There are. They just need to be a bit more elegant. [MSDN]
Andrew
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 7:56 AMYour choices are to complain, or to use the little up arrow in the top right to hide it when you don’t need it. Descisions, descisions.
Nick
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 8:43 AMIt’s functional, and yes, you can always hide it but that doesn’t change the fact that this UX is an absolute shambles. I know Microsoft can do better than this.
lulz
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 8:30 AMAs much as one might want it to be minimalistic, ultimately Explorer IS and always will be an incredibly functional, it’s not just something where you can go see your files.
Thus they’ve turned Explorer into a full functional application and given it a UI to suit, allowing all commands to be easily visible.
I don’t like the look of it at the moment, but it’s probably quite useful, and yes, you can always hide the ribbon.
Perhaps it’s the hideous blue colour and icon style that detracts. I think they’ve changed the ribbon now to a more Office 2010 style so that it blends in more.
Sicarius123
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 8:39 AM“But pulling a complete 180 and making the menu bar items permanently visible, with icons sprawled all over the place, isn’t exactly the best solution either.”
You have no idea how Ribbon works do you? Play with Office 2010 some more.
EckyThump
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 8:40 AMI just can’t figure out why they are still using single pane file browsing, It’s one of the most common things people ask for in a browser! #{
NacaYoda
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 8:41 AMAt least you can hide the ribbon. Office 2007 was one of the world’s worst interfaces. Office 2010 not much better. The ribbon needs to die, not be rolled out further!
Every time I see this aaproach (from Microsoft) I think of Homer Simpson designing a car. Every one has a ball on the ariel so you can find your car in the carpark. Thus, everyone has a ball, everyone fights for priority. Result, no one can find anything. I hate the ribbon.
Alan
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 8:45 AMThe ribbon is the worst thing that Microsoft has ever done in the way of UI design. It makes me sick to look at the way my beloved operating system is heading.
MDolley
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 9:04 AMI used to hate the ribbon. Then I customised it. Now I love it. (Wouldn’t that make a great romantic comedy?)
I think it’s the perfect choice. I think people like big, clearly defined buttons. If you’re a power user then hide it.
BenDTU
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 9:17 AMWake me up when they’ve fired the people responsible for this and put the WP7 guys onto turning Win9 fully Metro.
Gordon Pedersen
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 11:15 AMBecause tiles as opposed to the ribbon would make it much less cluttered…
BenDTU
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 12:31 PMNot referring to tiles, just overall design aesthetic.
In the meantime I’ll continue to use custom Metro themes I guess…
Chris
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 8:30 PMI think so too! I would like to see the Explorer UI in metro style, like we saw it already in some office 15 screenshots: flat, clean an simple! (http://goo.gl/BLK6x)
glennc
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 9:26 AMi really hate the broken windows 7 explorer. if win8 can at least work for me i’ll be happy. win7 makes it impossible to use the tree effectively
Donski
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 9:36 AMI rarely use the menu now in explorer. Almost everything I do now in explorer can easily be done via shortcuts or right mouse clicks. I see no need to add the ribbon just so it looks like other ms apps.
Gabriel
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 9:51 AMwinge, winge guys. Some of those features are very useful. Copy path is something which i would use all the time!! There are some powerful enhancements in there from what i can see
Matt
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 10:23 AM*sigh* Gizmodo, you guys should have read the whole MSDN article before posting a knee-jerk post. The toolbar can be minimised and customised. You can also have the Quick Access Toolbar placed underneath the ribbon if you wish.
EckyThump
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 11:12 AMThat’s good. but what about dual pane browsing? #]
MDolley
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 12:08 PMOpen Explorer, Windows + Left
Open Explorer, Windows + Right
Dual pane browsing ;)
Wok
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 1:12 PM+1
EckyThump
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 1:37 PMYeah, I prefer the VBS script called “Side by Side”, quicker and easier
poedgirl
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 3:01 PMTo be honest, I’d rather not have dual-pane browsing. I prefer it the way it is and just open another window if I want to drag things back and forth.
As MDolley said, open 2 windows, use Aero snap to open them side-by-side.
Mike
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 3:01 PMLike it, for sure I’ll be customising it a lot but the general idea of hooking in services is great.
M4192
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 6:05 PMI like it. As the blog post said, most people use explorer functions through context menus. This is not the most obvious place to look for functions, especially for beginners. The ribbon puts functions people actually use in a visible area which is logically sorted, hardly the mess you describe it to be. You say this is for power users but this should make things a lot easier for beginners. The context menu will still be there, you can hide the ribbon and you can add your most used commands to the quick access toolbar. There’s no reason to complain, this is an improvement over the current command bar. What would you suggest be done?
TSH
Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 11:48 AMThe ribbon is a great use of modern, high-resolution screen real-estate: it shows novices all the cool things they could already do with familiar applications. This is why the Office Ribbon is good – the same goes for Explorer.
Power users and nerds like us can just hide it and keep using our keyboard shortcuts to speed around the filesystem, same as always.
Dr_Stef
Saturday, September 3, 2011 at 6:22 PMI probably use IE once a year…