Metro themed websites are suddenly becoming very popular. I updated my own website (below) to Metro last month, partly because it’s Microsoft products I write about mostly, but also because it makes for a touch-friendly website and I firmly believe that all websites should at least be considering the move to touch by now.
With Metro now appearing across all Microsoft’s platforms including the Xbox 360, it is soon going to be an interface with which people are very familiar. This doesn’t mean that other people, such as myself, should always ape the design. There will be scenarios however when it will be appropriate if used tastefully.
Now though Microsoft UK have updated their Windows Phone website to a Metro style and it’s dividing opinion, in no small part because of the size of the “live tiles” they’re using on the front page. It’s a new interactive design that’s based around images. That means it’s not always clear what image relates to what article until the intro-text slides into view. You can hover your mouse over a tile to get the text detail to slide in, but that’s not exactly touch-friendly.
This raises all manner of questions about the uses for both Metro and touch on websites and I wanted to throw this open to you for conversation. There will be all manner of Metro-style themes appearing on the web in the next few years, some will be great and some will be awful.
What do you think would make a good Metro website? Would it require that it must be touch-friendly or is the way the new Windows Phone website does things enough for you? Is it even important to you that websites support touch at all, or is this one of the most important moves you think the web needs to make?
Do you perhaps feel that the move to Metro is stifling good design (I remember some of the best website designs I’ve ever seen came around the turn of the 21st century) or that the move to a more ‘unified’ interface across the web-based on a touch interface would be the way to go, as opposed to the ‘unified’ interface the web currently supports of a toolbar with drop down menus approach that has been common for years now.
My KInd of Phone is my local (UK) site but I cannot rate my phone because my phone is from the USA (Samsung Focus S) and the site is regionalised which is both unfortunate and a mistake that needs correcting ASAP I would have purchased the Focus S in the UK in a heartbeat but again due to silly regionalising it’s not possible. I think this closed region type of attitude will ultimately hurt rather than benefit Microsoft. After all, you can buy an iPhone anywhere and the same goes with a Galaxy S2 so why can’t you buy a Focus S in the UK or the rest of the world, what is that all about? Are you trying to make WP7 success as hard to achieve as possible?
The Focus S (to me) was a natural progression from my beloved Omnia 7, so I had to go to Florida to get it, makes good sense to me…..NOT!
Delete it.