Understanding Windows Vista User Experience

For those in the computer industry for a lifetime the ride probably has been a very exciting one on the computer graphical user Interface (GUI), I only have been in this industry for 7 years but I can imagine when windows hit the street over 20 years ago with the black screen of DOS and the all familiar C:\, and pretty much everything evolved from there, windows 95 introduced the notion of right clicking on objects to discover context sensitive options. And windows 98 introduced the shell Explorer pretty much using the Internet Explorer code, Windows XP began a trend toward task oriented user interfaces with folder views that changed based on the content you were viewing or selected.

Now gazing upon windows vista for the first time I am immediately struck by how different everything looks when compared to older windows version like windows XP and Windows 2000. Now, windows are translucent and glass-like with subtle animations and visual cues. No doubt, Windows vista is a mayor new windows version with so much to learn and explore.

In Windows vista the windows user interface has made a big jump, as you boot up onto your computer desktop you will be presented with a translucent glass-like interface, and finally the name of this wonderful operating system make sense, yes, in windows vista Windows actually look like they are made of glass, just like real windows.

Exploring higher levels in vista however is comforting to know that windows vista hasn’t change that much; you still have to press the start button to launch the start menu where you can perform tasks such as launching applications. Accessing the control panel, networking features and other related functionalities, and turn off the system. A task bar still runs along the bottom of the windows vista desktop, containing button for each open window and applications. A system tray still sits in the lower right corner of the screen, full notification icons and the system clock. The desktop still contains icons and shortcuts. Windows still appear to float above this desktop, and all your familiar applications and documents will still work.

I jumped to describe this first experience on windows Vista but I couldn’t resist the temptation of writing about it. I actually was planning to post about the installation of vista which I did yesterday but I haven’t finished the doc yet. Hopefully this weekend will go live.