Within the design of the conference UX Week, which takes place in San Francisco, USA, a member of the development team of Windows 8 Jensen Harris shared interesting information about how to create an interface that is very unusual for operating system. Recall that they updated “the panel” appearance of the OS, the company did not show up until the middle of 2011, but as demonstrated in the achievements of the conference there in 2010.

Of the interesting things is to provide a date when there was talk about a complete change of paradigm in the desktop operating system interface. This was within the corporation started talking back in 2009 a few months before the release of Windows 7. As noted by Jensen Harris, something difficult to radically change for fear that people will not understand innovation. One of the examples taken from the gaming industry, when once introduced the idea of running for years – this is a game controller Sony DualShock, no major changes since 1997. Increased functionality, but the shape was not changed in any PlayStation 2 or PlayStation 3.

In turn, Nintendo decided on a bold experiment with Wii and not lost. So Microsoft decided to radically change everything, although now in Windows 8 get on both interfaces: classical and panel.

Harris’s story allows us to trace the work of designers and interface optimized the Windows 8 UI. Thus, his early version presupposed icon with a clock, battery level and Wi-Fi signal on your desktop. A side panel contains additional icons to launch the media player and go to the favorites. The final product from them was dropped. On the desktop is leaving only the active panel and account name.

Harris also noted that Microsoft is now focusing on all of even the smallest detail, to bring the interface to a single style, a simple but effective look. The company decided not to pursue vibrant visuals, a company representative said, alluding to a competitor in the face of Apple. Whatever it was, the last word will be for the consumer and for the moment the reaction of the people is ambiguous.

This was all about the history of Windows 8 UI, that how it was evolved, stay tuned for more updates regarding this new Microsoft Operating System.