Often times, people just don’t understand the design that went behind Windows Phone 7. Yes, it looks completely and shockingly different from everything else, which is why its so special. I’m here to tell you the interesting story behind one the greatest design efforts that went on inside Microsoft, one that could make you question whether Apple gets software design as much as one man and his team within a enormous company, or least make you believe Apple’s solution to software design isn’t the end-all be-all solution that many think it is.
For years, Microsoft has had an amazing team of designers deep within the Entertainment and Devices division responsible for all of the UIs and User experiences to come out of the division (Media Center, Xbox, Zune etc.)
Microsoft hired a Nike shoe designer by the name of Albert Shum to take on the role of creating a design language for a next generation mobile OS that would be a complete restart for MS. One could say thats how desperate they were. Another could say Microsoft was betting on the future of mobile experiences, just like the GUI with Windows 1.0 and later versions of DOS that utilized a GUI.
This is the result of Shum’s work: “The Metro design language” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Design_Language Every single little detail of the design has significant and powerful meaning behind it, and to judge it without understanding or appreciating what Metro is all about, would almost be a crime. There is real powerful meaning behind the typography, only one element of Metro.
