Apple’s UI philosophy vs. Microsoft

Microsoft’s Windows 8 team today posted a blog entry detailing the user interface “improvements” in the Windows 8 explorer. This perfectly illustrates the difference between Microsoft & Apple’s user interface philosophies.

Microsoft’s usage data shows that users are more likely to use a right-click context menu or hotkey to issue most commands, rather than the command bar or menu bar. Rather than optimizing the explorer for that scenario, they decided to do the opposite and make the UI elements bigger and more intrusive.

Apple, on the other hand, refines the UI elements and makes them less intrusive. Everything is still there when you need it, but it doesn’t stick out and get in your way.