Windows 8 Creates a New and Better UI Paradigm

Windows 8 not only feels clean and refreshing but also illustrates a new user interface paradigm which makes a lot of sense.

For as long as we’ve had “windowing” user interfaces, we’ve had icons which opened up to an application taking up the entire screen.  This is how Mac OS, Windows, Linux desktops like Gnome and KDE, iOS, and Android all work.

With Windows 8, however, you now have a desktop of tiles, each of which is automatically refreshing with the latest updates.  One window is showing you the latest news headlines, another is showing weather or stock market indices, while a third could be tempting you with travel photos or Facebook chatter.  (I’ll take the travel photos):

 

Try it for a while, and you’ll find yourself just sitting back and watch the world roll by, one tile at a time.  But you’re not just wasting time.  You’re also  witnessing something far more profound: the general technological shift from synchronous to asynchronous computing.