The interface of Windows 7: beginning

Microsoft company rarely treats us to details of the work on their products. At the recent MIX conference devoted to the questions of users` convenient work, Microsoft has raised a veil of mystery of the development process of Windows 7 interface. The participants of the conference were offered more than 400 sketches and ideas that were abandoned at the final version of Windows 7.
Stephan Hoefnagels the leading designer on the convenience of work has said about several “crazy ideas” that were born in minds of Windows 7 developers, although not all ideas have found acceptance among potential users. For example, the developers of Windows 7 allowed clicking pop-up miniatures of windows -many Vista users were disappointed to see that it was impossible to click the thumbnail window, arising when you aim mouse pointer at the title of the window in the taskbar. Numerous user requirements have made the developers to realize this opportunity, which now seems obvious - if you see the thumbnail of the desired window, it will be logical to click on this thumbnail to get into this window. Among these “crazy ideas” there are various concepts, such as “Batman signal”. The idea was to show a user, which window on the desktop is connected to the title in the taskbar. When a user aims the pointer on the window title, from this title to the appropriate box a beam appeared similar to that was sent to the sky by Batman to notice residents of Gotema of his presence. Potential users considered this option too obtrusive, so “Batman signal” was finally abandoned.
Very instructive was the story of “nub” for calling in a list of transition. The developers for a long time were trying to put a small graphic element into different places of the interface in order that the user could open a list of the most needed folders in the system: folders with documents, music, videos and pictures. After tests they revealed that the final users do not want to use a special element, so that the developers decided to put a list of transition into the standard context menu, called by the right click of the mouse.
The story of Microsoft representatives showed how many efforts the designers and programmers are making to design the interface of new systems convenient and available to any user.
You yourself can get acquainted with sketches of Microsoft designers` “crazy ideas” in the article in TechRadar web-site.