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Thoughts on this sort of UI styling?

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MilesAhead:
Thanks, boss :)

I just can't bring myself to use unmodified UI controls. My eyes bleed, and I don't like that. Unfortunately all this designy stuff comes at the extra expense of real estate that is consumed by the whitespace, padding, margins, etc. What I'm trying to do here is to flesh out and evaluate the visuals and overall styling. This is the hard part. Reducing margins is a piece of cake.
-apankrat (November 19, 2012, 10:57 AM)
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I'm just curious. Is the dialog created using UI stuff available on Vista and later? Or does the same code work on XP? I've seen some tutorials about the new dialog styles available on Vista and W7 but I didn't really study 'em. You know like those panels that say "such and such an app has stopped working" that are different than the old XP style.

cranioscopical:
When I first opened the post and glanced at the screenshot, I thought it was one window at the top that cut of the top bit of another window below it.
-Jibz (November 19, 2012, 05:38 AM)
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I shared that first reaction, finding it quite distracting.

Paul Keith:
Not a designer but the design in an earlier era would have fitted in a traditional good but now it's all about speed/ergonomics creating the allure for the design. (although I'm inclined to agree with fodder)

In this case, a couple of nitpicks that irk me:

All gray Even if they show color on hover or is just one button beneath, it isn't clear what's the primary 1st priority of this program. I.E. in prolonged usage, you're forcing me to remember the text position rather than just hit an icon-ish button or a quick test menu.

Self-serving text I'm often at fault for verbosity but I definitely don't want to read it in directly on the software choices. I don't care how basic it is or how complex it is. That's what help files are for. Just bring me to the task. If it's really complicated, use the design to give a red label or warning subtitle: not recommended for 1st time users/advanced users. Anything. Just get me off reading this menu and let me start clicking something.

Small text Yes big text tends to make the window unnecessarily big and ruin the native feel of an application but I'm sick of these smaller texts in software pretending to be more office suite when really they have the option level of a browser's native nav bar. Even some Linux gui has improved on this slightly.

Lack of stats If it's a test, I would like to know how many times I've tested a certain option. If numbers are too complicated for insufficient reward, I would still like an rss reader type of "hint" where I have already tried a previous choice already. When even this is too complicated, I would like some clearer traffic signs. Yes, these are test icons but instead of 1/2/3/4 for example why not learn from browsers and use the back arrow for going back. The back arrow with a lock for switch to limited user and place them on the left side where the numbers used to be? This may be a bad designer choice but I hate the trend of going for symmetry over practicality. Designers have had ages to fix the remote control problem of PCs and they still put format over clarity except for Tablet apps that have shinier interfaces but then they mess up the ease of clicking a button.

Redundancy Instead of a quit button where the x button was oh so conveniently given the red color already, why not some option to remind me to rerun the test after X days or some other option like checkbox/drop down box like "run for every day of the week" or "default option" when nothing is selected and you click run some tests. It sounds like a feature suggestion but I believe in a post-gamification fad era/current tablet era, the button text menu is gone. Everything should at the basic level be written from the perspective of off/on -> start. Yes, "ok, let's run some tests is comforting" but only for the first time. It's a minor nitpick from a coding standpoint but for design, I believe something like this is the equivalent of quick scan/advanced scan for AV programs. It just confuses the customer. It just confuses the person trying to teach another person. It makes you hesitate to run tests but the program does not have any useful labels like before you start the car, do you have your seatbelts on. It's just redundancy over redundancy. Hit the play button already!

Bad Billboards If the window frame/border can't be changed, then the content inside should change. For coding, I believe this is overthinking it. For design, ignoring it, is the equivalent of ignoring where the entrance of a door comes out. You don't make the main entrance in front of a smelly alley for example. Ok, so the frame's providing an optical illusion...even with ugly design use that optical illusion for something important. Don't put the one text you can't click as the largest header-ish spot that the reader has to read. It would be like opening a document and being told that you are opening the document right now. No one cares. It was one of the main reasons why people got infected with ActiveX in the early days of IE. Get that thing away from that spot. Even in the current design, Elevate would have sent a better optical illusion. It's like when some software asks Start game and then later down, start in window mode. It doesn't matter what that lower option says. It can say start in fullscreen mode but because it's in the right spot even the most savvy coder who knows everything about the different fullscreen/windowed mode problems plaguing most software would instinctly have a sense that made the "start in windowed/fullscreen" is not intended by the designer to be the main form of starting the game even when it's a basic option that every average software user is familiar wtih already. It's all about instinct just like keyboard shortcuts. Yes there's no muscle memory but at least give users eye expectations so that they can move on and think less of the app.

allen:
I like it as is. None of the UI dress ups detract from it's concisely stated purpose...which allows me to glance at it, like it, and properly understand its purpose in one shot.
-Stoic Joker (November 19, 2012, 06:49 AM)
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What he said. I think it looks really nice.

MilesAhead:
Other than the drop shadow, it seems it's back to flat. Are we heading into another "flat" cycle?

Perhapns the sub text in the "buttons" are only for demo, but it reminds me of the type of help where you have an edit input line with the label Email Address and you press F1 to be told "enter your email address."  It doesn't look horrible, but I don't see the advantage to flat, bland and redundant unless the rest of the interface, such as desktop is all going to be flat. In which case, turn off the drop shadow.

I prefer a bit more color to give the eye something to do other than differentiate shades of gray. Not circus colors... but something.

If the IRS had a push button panel it might look like this one. :)
Top line would be "Pay your Taxes" and the sub text would be
"this is where you pay your taxes."

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