Vista – user friendly technology

The new Microsoft Windows Vista graphical user interface (GUI) offers some significant advantages and improvements over previous versions of the operating system. Wizards for performing common tasks and configuring the desktop and its applications are more streamlined and intuitive, and application interfaces are generally better appointed and easier to work with.

The key to these new features and benefits is probably a commitment by the largest software manufacturer on the planet to updating the underlying technologies that matter when it comes to the efficiency and ease of use of the desktop and application software.

In the (now somewhat distant) past, Microsoft was often maligned for a lack of attention to operating system details that some other manufacturers had tackled more effectively. For example, the Apple operating system was seen as the leader in the graphical user interface race for some time, and other heavy hitting UNIX based systems were generally thought to be ahead in terms of ‘multi-tasking’ capabilities and stability.

Developers of third party software – programs that run with or ‘on’ an operating system - are primarily responsible for the integrity, usability, and stability of the applications that they produce. However, all applications developed for a given operating system rely heavily on application programming interfaces (APIs) – libraries of ‘code’ that specify how applications written for an operating system will interact with it.

The operating system is the ‘go-between’ which allows applications (word processors, computer games, Web browsers etc.) to benefit from and manipulate the hardware of the computer system. It arbitrates access to hardware through device drivers – low-level invisible ‘close to the hardware’ programs that negotiate with the system to have it perform core tasks like sound production, video display and data storage.

Vista has been seriously re-engineered to facilitate a vastly improved relationship between application and the operating system – especially with regards to application user interfaces. Very refined software engineering efforts have gone into this latest OS – and especially into the furnishing of its UI.

There are two primary technologies that contribute to Vista’s new improved presentation and interactivity. They are the Windows Presentation Foundation (not a convening body of persons but a library or ‘subsystem’ of ‘code’ and APIs), and more specifically to the user interface – XAML. This is a standardised markup language for specifying how windows application user interfaces will look and behave1.

Prior to XAML, programmers would develop the user interfaces for Windows applications in the same way as they developed the rest of the application – using high level or object oriented programming languages. These languages are extremely powerful, but can be time consuming and complex to use, and by virtue of their power also allow for more ‘powerful’ mistakes to be made.

XAML avails application developers of a tightly specified, easily manageable way of building the user interfaces for applications, which actually has standardised presentation rules for Microsoft applications built in to it. This results in a much higher level of commonality and familiarity between the interfaces of applications built by different developers. This is good news for users and developers because application user interfaces are more familiar and less variable between applications.

Similar advancements have been made on the Web in the last few years, with the introduction of XML (extensible markup language) based cascading style sheets (CSS) – which allow Web developers to centralise the settings to control presentation of the Website (font types and colours etc.) in one location. This prevents different settings from propagating across the Web site during development – something that gets complicated and fiddly to fix – often resulting in confusing Web site interfaces.

Microsoft has also recently implemented ‘Skins’ technologies in Microsoft Visual Studio Web development tools, which allow Web site developers to further enhance Web site UI usability with CSS like mechanisms.

The similarities between the efficacies of CSS and XAML will not be lost on developers – and the common improvements in the user experience for both the Web and Windows Vista are also easy for users to discern.

It’s good to see a strong commitment to the user experience from Microsoft. User interest in Web 2.0, and a new wave of Web-desktop linking ‘toolbar’ technologies rather demand it.

References and Further Reading

1. Microsoft. "Windows Presentation Foundation".  2007. Microsoft Developer Network. Technical developer material. Microsoft. 1st April 2007 2007. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663326.aspx

2. Microsoft. "Create the Experience".  2007. Windows Vista Developmer Center. Overview. Microsoft. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/aa904981