Windows 8 Metro-Style Apps Bring New Design Goals

Windows 8, now available as a Consumer Preview release and expected to be generally available in late 2012, emphasizes a new touch-centric Metro user interface (UI). The Desktop mode of Windows 8 offers the legacy Windows UI that has evolved while maintaining most user input and control metaphors over the past two decades, but the Metro-style Start screen and UI is the view nearly all users will see upon starting Windows 8. Developers, IT staff, and users will need to become familiarized with Metro concepts and elements to build, maintain, and use applications that work in the new environment.

Biggest UI Change in Decades

The Windows 8 Metro UI is the most dramatic change to the way users interact with the OS since Windows first became popular in the early 1990s. Further, the Metro environment is not an optional UI that users can easily turn off, and it will be the same for all devices running Windows 8, including desktop PCs, notebooks, and tablet devices, so all users of Windows 8 will need to work with the new UI at least part of the time.