So, what's really the idea behind Vista's default Aero Glass theme?  Let's break it down and examine a few components (sorry, I don't have enough time to review each part of the interface):


The new ultra thick borders puts an end to those unobtrusive streamlined borders of Windows 9x.  The thickness of these borders are used to highlight the importance of window boundaries and helps divert the users attention towards that.

Whilst designing Aero, wee soon realised that the ultra thick borders didn't highlight Vista's wonderful window borders enough, so wee added lots of black stuff around the border in attempt to simulate shadow effects.  Not only does it do that, but it also helps block out content from underlying windows.  Wee wanted the black stuff to cover the entire screen, so the amount of content the user sees is limited even more, however, our boss pointed out that it would make our aim seem too obvious.

Blurry titlebars are present to make Windows look more complex than it really is.  Stacked on top of each other, they can make Windows look nearly as complex as Linux.
It's aimed at drawing the user's attention away from the content of each window, and divert it to the titlebar's mysterious beauty.  Like Luna's titlebar, Aero's is oversized, which helps emphasise the importance of the title over the content.  In an attempt to make sure the user doesn't actually get anything useful out of staring at this confusing mess, the text in the title has been made less distinguishable and also semi-transparent, so that stacked on various surfaces, it can be nearly illegible.

Desktop always gets too messy?  No worries, with oversized icons you won't be able to put much on the desktop at all.  The large spacing between the icons are intended to show as much of Vista's wonderful, but quickly monotonous, background and preventing the user from covering it with their cheap 256 colour icons.
The size of the icon also allows artists to incorporate extra detail and complexity into single functions, whilst masking Vista's inability to really perform anything.

Usually, people tend to hide their trash inside black plastic bags and opaque rubbish bins, but why should they?  What do they have to hide?  With Vista's transparent bin users now can show off all their gunk shamelessly.  This highlights (whereas opaque bins would hide) the importance of rubbish in the Vista environment.

(no screenshot available) Who thought that window alpha blending, introduced in Windows NT 5.0 could be so great?  Open a window - instead of just appearing there (and just working), Vista will waste the user's time by showing how the window is created.  This serves as a highly worthwhile educational experience for the user that windows simply don't just "appear" on screen, rather, they must also follow the laws of physics and slowly come into existence.  This also hypnotizes the user so that they pay less attention to the mundane window contents.

Stop!  Do not close that window!  Vista's new warning light will flick into action when you try to close a window.  You really do not want to close windows - it makes Vista look less complex after all.  And why would you want to - the window itself is a work of art after all.
Wee wanted to also attach an earsplitting alarm sound with this as well, but again, our boss told us not to.


So, what are you waiting for?  Sell your soul to Microsoft and purchase Vista now!

(This post was last modified: 11/08/2007 04:52 AM by ZiNgA BuRgA.)

lol that was lol

I enjoyed that!

rofl

Ha, FreeBSD really?

I lol'd XD