In the middle of September at the Build Conference in Anaheim, California, Microsoft officially announced the next version of Windows – Windows 8. In the design community a new release of Windows barely raises a eyebrow of interest. Well community, I think this time around we should all sit up and take notice, this is Microsoft’s System 9 to OS-X quantum leap.

It’s not down to hardware or form factor, or ARM versus Intel, or slate versus laptop versus desktop. Windows 8 wows plain and simply because of the quality, breadth and depth of the design effort that was put into Metro, Microsoft’s new and increasing pervasive UI paradigm.

The seeds of Metro can be found in the Zune music player, then about 18 months ago it was introduced as the UI for Windows Phone 7, the XBOX 360 dashboard will be updated with Metro sometime this Autumn and then, about this time next year, it will hit Windows desktops and slates.

I believe that finally Microsoft have ‘got’ what Apple have know all along – design matters, REALLY matters, and that it’s not just a case of making buttons look shiny or an icon look glossy, design runs to the very core of the way a user interacts with any system.

They call it way-finding, pretty much any action you perform on a computer is to get you from one place (or state) to another, and you want the simplest and clearest form of guidance to help you do that. From what I’ve seen so far of Metro in action, it does that in spades.

I’d recommend you watch these two videos from the Build conference, they weigh in at nearly 3 hours but if you can find the time they are a great insight into Microsoft’s current thinking regarding UX, and into how the design team are now first class citizens in a company full of developers, suits and marketers.

• 8 traits of great Metro style apps: Jensen Harris – http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/BPS-1004
• Designing Metro style, principles and personality: Samuel Moreau – http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/APP-395T