The future of interactive interface: to return to basics or true or false difficult to distinguish?

October 11, 2010, Windows Phone 7 was officially released. Microsoft has announced that the rebirth of the system has not only improved its intrinsic performance, but also highlighted its appearance: the innovative implications of the Metro-style interface. On the one hand, the interactive interface of a system clearly determines the user's most intuitive feelings of the system, on the other hand, the Metro style interface and "dynamic magnetic paste" concept, although people do not see love, but really unique, impressive.

In view of the current situation, although the Metro style interface has been subject to mixed comments, but Microsoft has apparently been under the heart to put the Metro clothes out, on the runway to take a few steps. Metro-style panels, slides, and even drama actors and props are everywhere at Microsoft's Windows Phone conference in China. The metro style is a theme that runs through the entire event, which is what Microsoft spends on Metro.

To the surprise of many people, Microsoft's next-generation Windows operating system, Windows 8, also incorporates a very strong Metro style. This change is not just for flat or other mobile devices based on ARM, the future X86 architecture of the Windows 8 operating system run by the PC will also have the Metro style interface, which rightly raises a lot of eyebrows because the Metro-style interface for traditional mouse interaction Not friendly enough. But it also reflects Microsoft's determination to promote the Metro interface.

To promote Metro, Microsoft has even spared the Aero effects of Windows Vista to Windows 71. This special "hair glass" effect allows windows to look more textured at the edge of the window, just like the glass, where the user can even see the other interface elements behind it through the edge of the window. Aero can be said to be a typical simulation effect. Microsoft is a minimalist Metro, taking it for granted. From this point of view, Microsoft in the interactive interface design to choose the path of innocence.

October 19, 2011. Google United Samsung launched the fourth-generation Android operating system at the Hong Kong International Convention and Exhibition Center, one of the highlights of which is that Android 4.0 finally has a unified interactive interface style, compared to previous Android 2.3, Android 2.2, a richer era and a sense of technology. Google said the new theme style called Holo, and the introduction of relevant design guidance, hope that third-party applications can quickly follow up, to some extent, to address the various applications of the ANDROID device interface seriously split the problem.

To show his determination, Google does not intend to use the new interactive interface design specification for its holo, but has set the default theme for all Android 4.0 third-party apps. This means that the interface elements used by the new application will automatically take the resources from the Holo topic unless the developer customizes it. The holo theme should be the direction of Android's future interactive interface.

In contrast to previous versions of the Android system, it is clear that Google is also clearly taking a pragmatic approach to returning to basics. The simulation effects of each element have been placed in a very minor position. At the launch of Android 4.0, Matias Duarte, an interactive interface designer at Google's former Palm company, stressed: "The interface is no longer disguised as a false thing." No longer fake wood, fake metal, fake plastic. ”

If there is a smartphone operating system that is exactly the same as the two systems we have just mentioned are very different from the interactive interface design, it is not an iOS to provide simulation results. In IOS, the application of simulation effect is more and more trend:

The video shows the iOS6, a sliding control that monitors the relative position of the user's perspective by using a gyroscope built into the iPhone, thus rendering different lighting effects. In order to achieve this simulation effect, regardless of the use of sensors, have to say is a way of doing anything.

Since the release of iOS (formerly known as the IPhone OS and later renamed iOS), Apple has done little to modify this extremely interactive interface. Even so, these changes are mostly pixel-level. So far Apple has made the most changes in the IOS interactive interface has changed the switch control, the block switch from the front to the today's circular toggle switch. There are also comments that this is because IOS interface interaction design is very correct, mature, nothing can change.

Apple is so demanding to simulate the interface effect, even at the expense of the system in other aspects of operational efficiency. It is said that in the IOS system, the interface drawing process has the highest priority, so that users feel the smooth and natural operations. Throughout the system, users can easily project their own experiences in real life, such as the Inertia of scrolls, and the bounce behavior at the end of the page. What's more, the pop-up interface from the outside of the screen gracefully slide into the animation and even the desktop of each icon on the high light effect, none of the simulation interface to tell the ultimate. As if the other end of the IOS device screen really has a screen made of delicate magnets, firmly sucking on the wallpaper behind the general.

More developers pointed out that Apple in order to allow iBooks to achieve extremely smooth page effect, and even the page can follow the user hesitated to flip back and forth, regardless of the customization of the private API. These light, shadow and texture, and even the invisible pixel density of the unaided eye since the IPhone 4, interweave the philosophy of the IOS Interactive design: To create an interactive interface that is comparable to the real world for users.

After decades of mobile device development, the user interface has just come out of the bottleneck of hardware constraints, but also a part of the system holding up the practical and minimalist style back to simplicity, which is really a very interesting thing.

But on the other hand, blindly simulation does not seem to have an end, because our mobile devices filled with virtual data is not small, after all, a typical example is that the reality of the book can never be quickly retrieved through the progress bar. The future of interactive interface, innocence seems to be a very realistic choice. But as more interactive technologies are developed, it seems to be around the corner to make an interactive interface that is hard to distinguish from the real world. In the future, it will be a big problem for the interactive interface designer how to integrate the proper benefits into the realistic effect under the premise of ensuring the practicability of the interactive interface.

Article Source: Love Fan ER