I've talked about my desire for a keyboard layout standard, especially with respect to laptops. Heck, I've even tossed the idea of buying a MacBook out the window because of their horrible keyboard. For me, this is the first thing I look at when considering a new laptop. Since last year, when I bought my first Lenovo, I've been griping about the ridiculous Fn key, which is on the wrong side of the Ctrl key. That's not my only complaint, but it's the biggest one. The next is the Esc key that's above F1, which causes me to press F1 occasionally. There's a few more, but I'll spare you. Luckily, Lenovo fans have a small glimmer of hope: Lenovo keyboard layout survey. This was recently mentioned on the Lenovo Design Matters blog . Go, go, GO!!! Unfortunately, this doesn't explicitly ask about the Fn key, but I definitely left a comment about it. Please take the survey, but if you contribute to them screwing up the 3x2 Insert/Delete, Home/End, Page Up/Down keys, I'm coming after you.

I saw Simon Guest talk about user experience back in August and one of the things I liked was a tool he had to help decide what user interface platform was the best. Microsoft has 30-something user interface technologies. Sometimes it's hard to know which will be best. More often than not, we use the one the tech lead is the most comfortable with, which is pretty much a crap-shoot. Simon's app, UXIQ, asks 12 questions which you answer on a sliding scale. Ultimately, you're given three recommendations to decide on. I'll definitely keep this tool in my arsenal and suggest you do the same -- both the app and source are available on Simon's blog post.

I was just telling a co-worker how, despite the fact that it hasn't been said, I believe WPF will be the future of Windows development. This seems obvious, but my initial take on WPF was that it was merely another option. I even question a potential attempt to relace the myriad of web development technologies with a XAML development experience. I don't see this being overly successful, but the idea of a single development model intrigues me. If that were to happen today, it seems like XHTML + JavaScript would have more potential. Either way, I don't see it happening any time soon.

Whether or not we see a single language span Windows and web, it looks like we have something new to look forward to. Apparently, Microsoft is looking into yet another UI platform. I seriously question why, but welcome the change. I'd really like to know what WPF is missing that requires a new platform. At this point, tooling is my only real complaint about WPF.

A while back, I wrote about the difference between user interface and user experience by paraphrasing Simon Guest . On his blog, he shows us the difference between the two in a real world, non-technical example. This is a good resource for anyone who doesn't know the difference, yet.

I’ve seen some other comments on running Vista on a Mac Book and it seems to be somewhat unanimous: the keyboard sucks. Some of the benefits I have heard include the use of firewire, Parallels, and BootCamp, none of which I’ll ever use. Of course, that’s not it. A few of the hardware niceties include the backlit keyboard, front-loading DVD, and magnetic charger. I don’t know if I like the idea of a front-loading DVD player, but what does it really matter? Not much, in my book. The problems mentioned include the excessive heat; touchy touch pad, which is a problem I already have with laptops; uncomfortable typing due to the front edge of the laptop; two-finger + clicking is a cool idea, but slightly annoying when considering the simplicity of a right-click; and, of course, the keyboard layout. I’ve also heard there have been problems with 64-bit Vista due to lack of driver support. Given all this, I don’t think I’ll be giving it a try anytime soon. Of course, if the Mac tablet happens before June, when I get a new one, I may be singing a different tune. Steve Jobs did say he wouldn’t do a tablet, tho, so I don’t see that happening this year.

Given my new venture, I have to complain about something... small tools/utilities that don't close when I hit Esc. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying everything needs to close on Esc, but there is a lot that could. Take, for instance, the vast number of utility windows in Windows... wait, no, let me revise that... How about every control panel applet (or whatever you call them). Ok, sure, a lot of them are dialog-based and close as you'd expect when Esc is pressed. Let's look at the Windows Update window in Vista, tho. Since it's based on Windows Explorer, Esc doesn't close it. There's no OK/Cancel button; no buttons at all. So why would it hurt to support Esc? Perhaps this is simply an oversite, but it's one that way too common. I can name a dozen places like this in Windows, but I'll spare you the agony. Microsoft isn't the only culprit, tho. All I ask is that developers think about their users a little more. Is there any way you can shave one keystroke, one mouse move, or even a transition from the keyboard to the mouse. All these things add up to big points in the user experience arena.

Ok, I just thought about something and had to tell somebody, so I volunteered you... (suckers)  Last week, I took a WPF class Brian Noyes  put on. In that class, he mentioned how the main reason people will consider WPF, at least initially, is when they're looking for a "differentiated user experience." I couldn't help but chuckle as my [strange] mind processed this, tho... "differentiated user experience" = DUX... so, if you want to ensure you have a differentiated user experience, you probably want to keep your DUX in a row. HA!! Get it! DUX -- ducks? I kill me!

...ok, forgive me. I just had to get that out. I'm not nearly a dork on here as much as I am in person. I need to work on that.

Here's an interesting comparison of the user interfaces for Mac and Windows over the past ~13 years. I found it somewhat interesting, so I put a little more effort to see which ones came out first, hence the timeline below the UI comparison...

In the timeline, I marked the significant releases in red. This is just my opinion, of course, and others may think otherwise. The first thing I have to say is they should've included Windows 3.x, which is fairly similar to MacOS 7. Also, I want to say MacOS 7 is relatively similar to previous releases, visually, but I'm not 100% sure. Aside from that, if you compare it to the above UI comparison, you notice that Apple did a good job of pumping out releases fairly quickly, but Microsoft beat them to the market with Windows 3.0. Windows 3.1 was the release that really caught on, tho. Of course, the big story was Windows 95. I want to say Windows 95 had the largest release in the history of personal computers. The 7 year stagnation between MacOS 7 and 8 is probably the worst thing Apple could've done. I don't know about the promises at the time, but this was worse than the Vista release! Beyond that, MacOS 8 wasn't even much of an improvement. In my mind, Windows 95 leap-frogged MacOS, who wouldn't come close to catching up until 5.5 years later, with MacOS X. To say that another way, Apple couldn't beat Microsoft until they dropped their main code-base and started with Unix. I think that says a lot about the quality of Apple's code. Ok, maybe that's a low blow, but whatever. 9 months later, Microsoft released Windows XP, which gave Windows a bubbly/cartoony UI... which I have always hated. Finally, Windows Vista hits the streets in 2006 with a lot of big improvements, arguably the biggest upgrade since Windows 95. Of course, with such a huge market behind Windows, Microsoft can't survive without its vendors, which is the biggest reason Vista isn't on every desktop... well, the Windows users' desktops, at least. Lastly, the next incremental release of MacOS X was released last month. "Leopard" has a few very nice features, but isn't really a huge upgrade. Honestly, since MacOS X, Mac users haven't seen any big changes. So, we're coming up on 7 years since the last major Mac upgrade. Don't you think it's about time we see something big? Don't expect it, tho. I'd put my money on the next version of Windows coming out before a major upgrade to MacOS. Of course, Windows "7" may not be as big as I was hoping. Those changes may be reserved for the Windows 8.0 release, which I'd guess would be around 2012. Man... that's forever!

A few weeks ago, Mix 08 was announced. I started to check it out and contemplate how much I wanted to attend, since I missed the first one and decided to skip the last one and go to PDC instead... which was cancelled *grumble, grumble* Well, I'm not making that mistake this year. However, another conference I have an interest in attending just popped up: SD West 2008. At first, I was thinking how nice it'd be to check out both. Mix started out being a web developer conference, but has become more about user experience, which I have a great deal of interest in. SD West is an architecture forum. Unfortunately, I just found out they're both happening the same week. Decisions, decisions...

Given the fact that Mix has slightly moved away from the more technical developer content, I think I might opt for SD West. Of course, SD West has more non-Microsoft content I may not be interested in. I'd be lying if I said location doesn't matter. Mix is in Vegas, which is definitely fun; but SD West is in Santa Clara, which would be a first. I've been to San Fancisco, but that was quite a while ago. I'd like to get some feedback from someone who's been to both, but I guess I'll have to take a deeper look at the content of each to see which one would be more valuable.

We could only be so lucky